DANGEROUS GOODS.

Kumara Times, Issue 1464, 7 June 1881, Page 1

DANGEROUS GOODS.

[to the editor.] Sir —As you are a very likely person to know, I would like to ask you if there is not some Borough bye-law forbidding over a certain quantity of gunpowder, dynamite, kerosene, and other inflammable articles in any house within its boundaries. It might not be so dangerous to people who are insured ; but every man’s tent is his palace.—l am, «fec., Uninsured. Kumara, June 6, 1881. [The only reference to this danger in the Borough Bye-laws is in clause 8 of the bye-law relating to “ Fire Prevention,” which states that “ any person shall, on receiving notice from the Town Clerk, remove inflammable material which may have been deposited on any land within the borough,” and “it shall be removed in such manner as the Town Clerk may direct.” This provision, however, is very meagre, and applies more to the burning of brushwood and tops of trees. We consider it an oversight on the part of the framers of the Kumara Borough Byelaws, that no provision is made therein for the safe keeping of dangerous goods, the quantities which may be kept at any one time, and the manner in which such goods should be kept. But the “ Dangerous Goods Act, 1869,” provides that “no specially dangerous goods or petroleum, except to the extent of ten gallons, for private use, shall be kept within fifty yards of a dwellinghouse or building in which such goods are stored, except in pursuance of a license under the Act.” The penalty is £2O each day during which such goods are so kept. We regard it as an omission in the Borough Bye-laws the more because the “ Dangerous Goods Act ” empowers the Borough Council to grant licenses for this purpose. “The Gunpowder Ordinance,” 1850 makes it penal for any dealer in gunpowder to keep more thanSOlbs weight at any one time; and for any person, not being a dealer, to keep more than 151bs in any house, storehouse, warehouse, shop, cellar, yard, wharf, building, or place other than some public powder magazine, except by license granted to him for that purpose under the authority of tne Governor.— Ed. K. T.]