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Dilnot Sladden, Managing Director, Wellington Meat Export Company, sworn and examined. (No. 3.) 166. The Chairman.] Would you be good enough to give the Commission some information in regard to the matters we are inquiring into: will you give us the result of your experience?— lam afraid I cannot give any direct evidence on the subject, I have no recollection of having ever had to do with either wool or flax that is heated to any serious extent. lam afraid lam very much like other people, I can only surmise. 167. Mr. Foster.] I thought, Mr. Sladden, that, at any rate, if your experience in connection with the heated conditions of wool was not very wide, you might be able to give us some suggestions as to the direction in which we could look for the information we are seeking?—Well, I have been looking for information on the subject myself, and Ido not know where to get it. I have no definite theory or any particular views to advance on the subject. 168. Would it be likely that any of your employees would be able to give us any information which would throw light on the subject?—Well, the man in charge of the fellmongery has had a good deal of experience; he has been connected with wool all his life, and has a good deal to do with packing both greasy and slipe wools and skins. 169. Would that be particularly since he has been with your company or prior to that?— Prior to that; he had a good deal more experience before he was employed by our company than since. 170. He was in the employ of Mr. Tyer?—Yes. 171. Captain Blackburne. ]_You do not know of any experiments having been made with wet WO ol? —I do not know of any experiments. There have been some experiments made with charcoal, and I have noted myself the results of dry animal matter very often; but that does not come into the question. Heat is very readily generated in that case, especially with blood. 172. Mr. Foster.] Might not that have some bearing in regard to blood on dry sheep-skins? —I do not think so. I should say it is more often from moisture left in the pelt itself than from moisture left in the wool. 173. Assuming that moisture was left in the skin or wool, and with the presence of blood about the neck as is usually the case with wool from country stations, would that promote a further heat?—l do not think there would be sufficient quantity. The peculiarity about blood appears to be that it is more difficult to extract moisture from it than from other animal tissue, and I think it will heat with a smaller percentage of water in it—there is a smaller percentage of blood than, say, dry tissue. 174. Does blood attract moisture from the atmosphere to any extent? —Yes, very often. If you dry blood down to a dryness—or wetness —of 6 per cent, of water, and expose it to the atmosphere—if you were to expose it in such a room as this with the same atmosphere, the 6 per cent, would increase to 16 or 17 per cent,, and possibly even more, of water that it would take from the air. 175. The Chairman.] It would absorb that? —Yes. 176. Mr. Foster.] And would that be sufficient to create fermentation or heat?—Yes. You must not take my figures as absolutely correct, but I think that with 17 or 18 per cent, of moisture, if you put dry blood into the dag it would generate heat in a very few hours. 177. So that blood, from atmospheric conditions, may become dangerous?—Yes, in quantity; but I think it would have to be in greater quantities than possibly could be found in a bale of skins, for instance. 178. Have you had any experience in regard to the shipping of wool that might benefit us in any way?—l do not think so. With regard to heated wool, we had one bale sent back from the wTiarf some years ago —sent back warm—but it was unpacked as soon as it was sent back, and it was then found that it had been packed before it was quite cool from the driers, and it was repacked at once. 179. But the temperature found at the stage you speak of, of course, had not gone up from the time, but merely held its heat? —It had gone down, I think. I understood afterwards that the surveyor, Captain Bendall, said that he had not intended sending it back, but was going to put it by for a day, and if he had done that the temperature would have gone down a good deal; but, as a matter of fact, the manager of the fellmonery heard there was a bale warm on the wharf, and he sent for it at once to unpack it. 180. Could you make any suggestion as to preventative means —first, of detecting damp, and then as to detecting damp in the event of there being any dampness in bales? —It would require a very complete system of testing and supervision to be of any value, because I take it that in some instances it might be not only days but weeks before any heat is generated worth mentioning. 181. Captain Blackburne.] Do you think it would take as long as that?—lt might, yes. Of course, the number of fires that occur in proportion to the large quantity of wool that is shipped shows that it is only under extremely exceptional circumstances that anything like spontaneous combustion can take place, supposing that it does take place. It is impossible to believe but that there must be slightly wet fleeces sometimes packed by accident or carelessness, and out of so many hundreds of thousands or millions of fleeces that are packed, no doubt there must be some wet bales occasionally, and yet the fires are very few and far between, so that to be able to provide any test that would reach these exceptional cases you would, I think, have to be very careful. 182. Mr. Foster.] Does it strike you that the fires that have occurred recently are in any way due to features of the market and conditions of weather this last season?—Well, it certainly has occurred to me that it has been one of the dampest seasons; to use a farmer's expression, it has been one of the greenest seasons. The grass has been green all the year, and there has been a very well-spread rainfall throughout the summer, and also a great deal of rain during shearing-time, so that I certainly have thought myself that the wet season had probably something to do with it,