Wanted, a Spark Arrester. Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 33, 14 August 1902, Page 17

Wanted, a Spark Arrester.

Notes

Settlers who live alongside the railway lines and are in continual danger of being burnt out by fires caused from sparks emitted by passing engines, will derive little consolation from the attitude assumed by the Government in a recent debate on a petition presented by one James Wallace, a farmer in the Auckland district. The Minister of Railways stoutly contended that the law absolved the Government from liability in such cases, and the Hon. Mr M'Gowan, ironically asking the House to take a broad and practical view of the question, pointed out that the danger would be minimised if members would not insist on the use of local coal. But the public generally will refuse to endorse the callous view of the Railway Department, and will not even try to understand why it is that the Government should be free from a liability that law and justice alike impose on every private person. If, for example, the owner of a traction engine, travelling along a road, were to use inferior coal, and negleot to use the funnel covers that the law imposes upon private individuals, but permits Government engines to go without and thereby cause the destruction of crops by the wayside, he would aesuredly be made to pay the penalty. It is one of the sauons of law that no one shall prosecute his business to the oom* mon hurt. It is equally canonical that the public business shall not be prosecuted to individual hurt. In the interests of common ju«tiue th.ii principle should be applied to industries oarried on by the Government on behalf of the public.

The settler referred to above seems to have been particularly unfortunate. The location of his farm operated to his injury. In reporting, as a Commissioner on the subject of a former complaint, Mr Poynton, a Stipendiary Magistrate, said that owing to the configuration of the ground near his farm on the opposite side of the railway line there appeared to be an increased velocity of the prevailing wind at a particular place, whioh carried sparks on to the grass paddocks. At that time there had been no fewer than 28 Bros on the farm. But Mr Poynton found an alleviating oircumstance in the plea that there was no debris left along the line, and that such spark-arresting appliances as the Government provide were in good order. He, therefore, found that Mr Wallace's misfortunes were due to the unfortunate aspect of his land and the luxurianoe of his orop of ryegrass. Mr Poynton did grudgingly recommend some compensation to the unfortunate settler (with the reminder that he had no legal claim against the Department) oa the ground that ' he had suffered so often and undergone such suspense that some compensation might be given to him,' but this was qualified with the freezing proviso that 'it was not to be a preoedent in other oases.' Sir Joseph Ward's idea of reconciling public and private interests lay in the recommendation that persons who live in close proximity to railway trains ought to take precautions to insure themselves against possible loss from aocident by fire, and so prevent the Colony being asked to meet olaims of this kind. A more logical position might have been expected in Sir Joseph WardThe burden is still cast upon the unfortunate settler, for he will be penalised by premiums for his extra risk. And the Miniater'i dictum carries the further unfortunate suggestion that aa insurance oompany is a kind of benevolent society. But, in spite of all the fine-span pleas of the gentlemen who stand up for the Railway Department, we are entirely at one with those members who urge that the Government should take the same responsibility as private people in auoh oases, due provision, of course being made foi the Blight additional ' moral ' risk, as insurance experts have it, and ■hould oease at the earliest moment, not only in this but in other departments, from saying, ' Do as I say, and not as I do.'