THE Waikato Independent. THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1908.

Waikato Independent, Volume VII, Issue 464, 23 January 1908, Page 4

THE Waikato Independent. THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1908.

a number of fires, which have been raging lately, have no doubt been caused by carelessness displayed by settlers, there can be no question that many others have been started by sparks from railway engines. It is a good thing for the Railway Department that “ the Crown can do no wrong,” otherwise there would have been a great outcry on the part of settlers whose property has been lately destroyed, in various parts of the country, by sparks from railway engines. It is safe to say that the Railway Department has been the greatest incendiary during the last two or three weeks in New Zealand, and it is equally strange that so far no public protest has been made against its indifference in setting fire to people’s property. A glaring case ticcurred the other day in the Wairarapa district, -and is reported in the Wairarapa Age. From its report w r e learn that a settler’s wife, Mrs Buick, was standing watching the express go by. Immediately after it passed she noticed flames spring up in a grass paddock adjoining the line — about three hundred yards from the farm’s nearest paddock to the line. Efforts were made by her husband and a gang of a dozen men to put out the fire, but their attempts to do so were in vain and all they could do was to prevent it spreading into the adjoining paddocks. The flames spread among the already sun-frizzled pasture lands into one of Mr Buick’s best grass paddocks, one hundred acres in extent, through Mr P. W. Gaskin’s twenty-five-acre oat crop, lying neatly stocked ready to be garnered next day, and through no less than two hundred acres of the latter’s grass paddocks also. The Age further states that “ the amount of damage sustained by the settlers chiefly affected is very considerable. Mr Buick’s loss of a hundred acres of grass is not to be compared with the serious damage to his fencing, over five miles of which have been destroyed. Mr Gaskin also loses miles of valuable fencing, and out of his three hundred acres of grass only about sixty acres are left to him., Mr Kummer'a loss is not serious, amounting roughly to about £lO, while other settlers have sustained similar small loses.’! This is a typical instance, out of many, of the gross negligence of the powers that be to protect settlers crops and their properties from being destroyed by sparks from railway

engines. Surely it is the bounden duty of the State to see that the Department provides spark arresters on every engine used upon its lines, especially now that the whole country is in such a pavched-up condition ? If the railways were managed by private companies, instead of by the State, the Government would be the first, and rightly too, to compel them to desist from the wanton destruction of property that is now being caused by sparks from railway engines. It is to be hoped that the Department will take immediate steps in this matter to protect settlers, and, if not, that some M-P. will, without delay, draw the attention of the Government to the destruction that is now going on.