SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION ON SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8135, 15 June 1906, Page 2

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION ON SHIPS.

SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION URGED.

PBB PHEBB ASSOCIATION. Wellington, June 14. Referring to the recent fires on Homeward bound vessels, which have no doubt been caused by spontaneous combustion either from wool or flax, the " Post" says: ' Until very lately the insurance companies employed an inspector, whose duty it' was to examine consignments of wool, but for Bome reason this safeguard has been discontinued." The paper adds: "To allay general anxiety, and in the interests of our export trade as well as in the higher interest of publio safety, two things seem to be of immediate neoessity. First, the revision of the existing regulations, so as, in the present state of our knowledge, to minimise, as far as possible the present risk, and, secondly, the institution of systematic experimental investigation of the whole snbject, in ordor that we may be in a position to make accidents of this kind in future, so far as human foresight and precaution can avail, practically impossible. Not only property and the interests of trade are at present jeopardised, but precious human lives. The experiments should be conducted by the highest authorities on chemistry in the country, in association with the State Departments concerned, and with the representative local and commercial bodies. They should be of an exhaustive character and the results could not fail to be of permanent value."