CO129-614-1 Commission of Inquiry into fire at West Point- report 26-5-1949 - 22-12-1949 — Page 53

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with the matters raised in the preceding paragraph. The regulations

in use up to 1940 had dealt with explosives, highly inflammable liquids

such as petrol, very strong acids, and a few substances which readily give off an inflammable vapour. We formed the impression that these

older regulations were well known, and possibly well observed. In 1940, there was a drastic revision of the regulations, the exact reason for

which we were unable to ascertain. These new regulations are not at all well known to the general public, and the reasons possibly are as

follows :

1)

2)

3)

4)

they were made in 1940, a period of great stress;

a very considerable latitude was as usual permitted adminis- tratively in their observance during the initial twelve months of operation, and the war intervened before there was a tightening up on enforcement;

they were not readily available in published form till about the middle of 1948, and they were not in any case available in Chinese translation;

both the Fire Brigade and commercial concerns generally with the possible exception of some of the larger godown compan- ies have been so busy since 1945 in reinstating their 1939 standards and dealing with an unprecedented volume of work that they have had little time to attend to anything but the barest essentials, among which they have not included the strict observance of the dangerous goods regulations.

We think that the disregard of the regulations has been a result of ig-

norance rather than deliberate intention.

63. When we commenced our deliberations, the current impression was

that the regulations for the storage of dangerous goods were excessively

complicated and in any case impracticable. There are some further ob

servations on their practicality in a later paragraph, but here it is

only necessary to say that whatever their merits or demerits, the 1940

regulations have never been given a chance to be applied in a practical manner during a period of normality, and their virtues and shortcomings

therefore remain largely unascertained. At first sight they appear

voluminous and complex, but the principles are simple enough. There

would seem to be no difficulty in godown owners at least being familiar

with their requirements. We understand that in England there are two

separate sets of regulations, one for the carriage of goods at sea, and

one for storage on land; and neither are at present considered satisfac- tory. It is understandable that, given the specialised economy of Hong