FIRE RISKS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31113, 16 July 1966, Page 14

FIRE RISKS

(By

WHIM WHAM)

During a debate on a bill in the House of Representatives, Miss Mabel Howard <Opp., Sydenham! cited Parliament Buildings as a fire risk and said she had never been shown where to go In the event of a fire. There had been no emergency evacuation practices. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kirk, said that the Minister in Charge of fire services, the Minister of Internal Affairs, was himself In an upstairs office in a wooden building with no fire escape. —News item. The Heat of Parliamentary Debate Isn’t really dangerous, I mean that it’s not Likely to burn our House dewn during some Late Sitting and leave us Nothing but a Lot Of Ashes and the blackened Shell Of the Place and a rather unparliamentary Smell. If Somebody DID put a Match to the old Heap, The Nation might lose Masses of Important Papers,— Or the odd Back-bencher, peacefully asleep, Could be suffocated by the deadly Vapours Arising from that Conflagration of the Files, The Archives, the combustible Annals of these Isles. By World Standards, of course, it wouldn’t compare With, say, the Burning of Rome or the Reichstag Fire: Such Comparisons, however, wouldn’t be fair. For Us the Event would be sufficiently dire, — And I wouldn’t be the Minister of Internal Affairs If he’s got no External Exit, only the Stairs. Sir, I don't want to put Ideas into anyone’s Head. These are Grave Risks and there’s no Insurance Cover; — No more than against Loss of Memory, middle-aged Spread, Fits of Depression, or Mr D*n*s Gl*v*r;— Such Damage is intangible, it concerns the Soul Of the Nation, does Parliamentary Fire Control. Still there’s that other Fire, of the Head or Heart, That gives now and again not only Heat but Light: A Bit more of THAT in the Nation’s vital Part Would be a welcome, if no less astonishing Sight,— A few Tongues of Flame, and less of the Foam that quenches, Would be worth any Number of scorched Ministers and charred Benches!