MERCHANT NAVY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 267, 25 August 1930, Page 6

MERCHANT NAVY

TRIBUTE BY GOVERNOR. VALUE TO BRITAIN. IN PEACE AND IN WAR. (Special to the “Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, August 24. An impressive tribute to the work of the Merchant Navy was paid bv his Excellency tlie Governor-General (Lord Bledisloe), who, as its patron, was the chief guest at the second annual dinner, of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners on Saturday night. The president of the Company (Sir Charles Statliam), Speaker of the House of Representatives, was m the chair. Other guests were the Speaker of the Legislative Council (Sir Walter Carncross), Minister for Railways (the Hon. W. A. Veitch), the Bishop of Wellington (the Rt. Rev. Dr. Sprott), and Captain J. S. G. Fraser, D. 5.0., R.N., Chief Staff Officer of the New Zealand Division of l the Royal Navy. Members of the Company were present from various parts of New Zealand, and from a number of ships. In responding to the toast of ‘ Our Patron,” proposed by Sir Charles Statham, Lord Bledisloe expressed his appreciation of the cordiality . and loyalty shown him as representative of the IVing in this Dominion. It was, indeed, true that there was no more loyal body of men in the British Empire than the masters and officers of the Merchant Marine, and be regarded* it as a very high privilege to hold the office of patron. After remarking on the generous and high-minded decision to send New Zealand’s representatives to the Imperial Conference with the solid backing, of the united . nation, and the confidence that they, would express the people’s will,” his Excellency, later m the dinner, gave the toast of the Merchant Navy. Lord 1 . Bledisloe said that from the earliest days British mariners had been mainly responsible for the development of tlieir country and* the Empire, which had been largely built up by enterprising and courageous seamen. In recent years, as events had shown, no two countries had depended’ more for their existence and prosperity on the efficiency of the Merchant Navy than Britain and New Zealand. That bad been forcibly demonstrated 1 again and again since the days of Captain Cook, and those of the great pioneer settlers of the ’forties and ’fifties of the last century. Britain had long since ceased to be self-contained on the matter of food supplies, and tlie war had proved that but for the skill and dauntless courage of tlie men of the Merchant Navy her people Avould have starved. Speaking from personal experience as a member of the Ministry of Food. Control in 1916-18, and particularly as sugar controller, Lord Bledisloe cited facts which had caused “some of us landlubbers to realise what the Merchant Navy meant to Britain. Since those days I have realised the enormous dependence of the nation on the skill of the Merchant Marine, and their calm judgment and selfless courage in the face of emergency.” Lord Bledisloe concluded by remarking on the doughty deeds performed at sea, “since the time of Noah, the first master mariner,” and made humorous references to the despotic powers that could be wielded by sea captains and their extraordinary capacity for the retort courteous to “nervous landlubbers.”