DOMINION MONARCH’S ACCOMMODATION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 272, 29 August 1946, Page 8

DOMINION MONARCH’S ACCOMMODATION

REPLY TO COMPLAINTS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 28. “All dormitories in the Dominion Monarch were specially constructed for former servicemen’s dependents by the Sea Transport authorities to the satisfaction of the Australian Government official in London,” said the commander of the Dominion Monarch (Sir Henry Gordon) when reports of unsatisfactory conditions on the liner which were made in Australia last week, and repeated when the ship arrived in Wellington to-day, were referred to him. He admitted that some of the wives did not take the eight and 10-berth dormitories. Passengers complained that the laundry and drying facilities were hopelessly inadequate. One said the conditions resembled the “Black Hole of Calcutta,” and three bathrooms had to serve about 150 people. “I am. convinced that all these complaints are nonsense,” said Mr E. V. Bevin, New Zealand manager of the Shaw Savill and Albion Company. The Dominion Monarch was still a troop transport, not having been reconditioned since war service, and although conditions in the dormitories were hard, all passengers had sig’ned an agreement in Britain accepting the fact that the ship was still a transport. Some passengers described the complaints as unwarranted.. There were two deaths during the voyage out. A yonug baby, the child of a New Zealand serviceman, died when the ship was between Fremantle and Melbourne, and a woman aged 77 died from heart fialure when passing through the tropics.