7

a—4

When Dixon returned to the mine on Wednesday evening, 31st January, nothing appears to have been done beyond getting a fan ready to take the air into the mine, so that exploration could be carried on ; and it was not until the Friday, 2nd February, that a party was formed, headed by Dixon, and they succeeded in getting within a chain of the fire, which was then within 3* chains of the mam haulage-road. The main point for consideration is whether the fire could have been sealed off at least a chain up the bord instead of across the main haulage-road. If the fire could have been sealed off some distance up the bord the road would possibly have been saved, but to have done so would have involved some danger, the extent of which it is impossible to gauge. Alexander Mitchell, who was with Dixon at the farthest point to which any one ventured, is of opinion that it was too hazardous to attempt to put a stopping further in, and said plainly that he would not do it We may here observe that, in our opinion, Messrs. Dixon, Tennent, and Mitchell appear to have been cool, prudent, and courageous men, who were willing to take all necessary risks for adequate cause, but were not prepared to incur serious risk to their own and their subordinates'lives for the sake of trying to save a particular portion of an abandoned mine, the value of which was considered, and apparently justly considered, to be very little. If it was possible, with due regard to S u ft 1° PU v topping in some distance from the haulage-road instead of close to it, then it should have been done, and it would have been an error in judgment not to have at least attempted to save the road, by making the stopping as far as possible from the road ; but Mitchell and Tennent both say this could not be done without serious risk to life, and the evidence to the contrary is not sufficiently satisfactory for us to find they were wrong in their opinion. On Friday, 2nd February, after the fan was put in, and the party had got within a chain of ti£' a Vy to ° k place ' and a flame of fire came down the heading. The evidence of John Clark appears to us to be candid and truthful, and we accept it as a correct statement of what happened. When pressed he says he thinks Dixon used the means he thought best, but suggests that personally he would have put in a good stopping on the Bridge side of tunnel, then a good tight brattice or wall in the mouth of the tunnel takino- it in with him ; and tight stoppings in all the bords as he went along, and taking air into the old workings and sealing them off as he went along. In cross-examination be says ;" We put stopping in on the Bridge side as far as we could with safety—there was a risk in putting it in further. In the mouth of the main entrance the air was so bad it knocked us over. The air would perhaps have been no worse further in, but it would have been more difficult to get out " This witness appears to us to be independent, and his evidence is valuable in weighing the evidence of Mitchell, who may perhaps be said to have some interest in maintaining that the best method under the circumstances was adopted. Tennent says: " Dixon and I tried by all practicable means to save the haulage-road. If we had tried to save the haulage-road by stopping all the bords the broken overlying strata over the pillared ground would have supplied fresh air to support combustion When I left Dixon my instructions to him were to brattice off all the openings on each side of mam haulage-road, but it was not done when I came back. Ido not know why He said he did not think it necessary with the air-current he had. We made an effort to cut off at No. 6on sth February. We were beaten back." This is one of those instances we have before referred to in which Mr. Dixon's explanation of his reasons for taking the course he did is essential to forming a judgment as to whether there was no better way of dealing with the crisis than the way he took. Under this heading we are of opinion that the Westport-Cardiff Company did the best they could under the circumstances in engaging Mr. Dixon, and that he did all that he considered advisable or reasonably safe to do under the circumstances, and that though it may now appear that possibly an attempt might have been made to save the haulage-road by stopping all the bords leading from the fire thereto, no censure can reasonably be passed upon him for having decided not to take this course. Such an operation would have been attended with some risk, would not have been certainly successful, and the condition of the property was such as to render much risk unjustifiable. (3.) As to the Steps taken by the Inspector of Mines at Westport to suppress or extinguish the £ire during the Time the Mine was in Occupation of the Westport-Cardiff Company (Limited), and since the Possession of the Mine was resumed by the Crown on the 23rd May, 1900. Many of the observations made by us and much of the evidence quoted under the last preceding heading apply also to this. F When Mr. Tennent returned to the mine on the sth February all chance of saving the haulageroad had passed The outcrops were on fire, the internal fire had gained great power, and the extinction thereof must then necessarily be gradual and based on a thorough confinement to a known area The plan Mr. Tennent adopted and his reasons for it, may be told in his own words Me says; " On the sth February I found everything satisfactorily sealed off, as Mr. Dixon had left it and before opening the stoppings I went to the Bridge end, where I found an active fire burning at the highest point of the Hector outcrops. Giving instructions to start the fan, I went to the main entrance and opened the stopping. Having a party of ten men, and leaving a man at regular stations, I proceeded to the junction of the furnace-drift, where the fire was found ahead in main haulage-road, and a dense volume of heated smoke rolled down the furnace-drift, where it was impossible for a man to live two minutes. I determined to seal off the mine permanently 2* chains m from daylight, and a strong party of men were told off to prepare the walls for stopping and the work was carried on all night. About midnight of sth February a most extensive fall or explosion occurred inside the mine, and if we had been further in all the men would have been lost This fall cut off our ventilation from the fan, and it was with great difficulty that the inside wall of the stopping was closed. That was from the effect of black-damp, which was forced back