§ MR. BROADHURSTasked the Lord Advocate, If, in view of the deplorable accident during the fire at the Clipington Steam Waste Works, Dundee, on the 11th February, which resulted in the death of four members of the Fire Brigade, the Government would order a public inquiry into the whole circumstances?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)Full inquiry has been made in the usual way by the Procurator Fiscal into this lamentable accident. The cause of the fire was clearly ascertained. When the foreman was lighting a lamp preparatory to the opening of the works, between 5 and 6 in the morning, some waste or dust which had collected on the lamp, and the rod by which it was suspended, took fire, and the fire ran up the rod and communicated with the highly inflammable materials in the warehouse. The death of the four firemen was caused by the front wall of the building falling outwards unexpectedly, about an hour and a half after the commencement of the fire. A large number of witnesses have been examined, and the fall of the wall is attributed by some of them to defective masonry, while others are of opinion that the iron columns and beams had 1589 expanded, owing to the heat, and burst the wall. As the building was totally destroyed, it is impossible to determine with certainty to which cause the fall was due; and I do not think that any further light would be thrown upon the matter by following the exceptional course of holding a public inquiry.