"GOING TOO FAR?"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 13

"GOING TOO FAR?"

MACHINERY INSPECTIONS

AUCKLAND OPINIONS

There is some difference of opinion in Auckland with regard to the fees charged for machinery inspections made by the Marine Department. In Wellington and Christchurch opinion is that the Department is "going too far, and, in the effort to be selfsupporting, is "carrying inspections to extremes."

The head of one large engineering department, who has had 2§ years' experience, said that, he thought the inspections were absolutely necessary (states the "Auckland Star"). The inspectors had always performed their duties faithfully, and their inspections were a safeguard to the public, employer, and employee alike. He had not met a single inspector who did not know his job thoroughly. The inspectors sent around by the Department wero highly capable men with years o± marine experience behind them. The manager of the Auckland Power Board said that the matter had been considered by the board some years ago, whoa it was decided that the department's inspections were superfluous and a duplication, more or less, o± then- own inspections of their maehmory. The board was of the opinion that the charges made by the Department were not equitable. To charge a fee for every little motor installed was ridiculous. The whole inspection could be carried out by the factory inspectors. The superintending engineer at the -banners' Freezing Company was of the opinion that the fees charged by the -Department were not too high, although they wero in most <jases double the rates obtaining two years ago, when they wero undoubtedly too low "The inspection of 'machinery is a good thing for everyone concerned," he said. I his particularly applies to boilers." A boiler could burst, and while not harming anyone inside the factory could injure pedestrians outside. Inspections were made once a year in the ease of boilers ana electric motors, but m the case of electric lifts, which had only recently been brought under the machinery inspection regulations, inspection twice a year was quite unnecessary.