ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 102, 29 April 1912, Page 2

ANGLO-COLONIAL NOTES.

IHK \VEECK OF THE OCEANIA. TEE LASCAJ: PERIL. tl'roai Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON. March 2:5. ","::■■ -a reek of the P. and O. liner 1,.,,.,:,, ; i the 1 '■■.r.ne!. following as It ci; -~ cicely on the >-? ( f the Delhi. Is a r..n-tv t-loa for t : i.• great siwpping: line; , ;,.-,' much ;j> reason of the tinam-ial ;.--;:] which the urc.k involves I no < ::>->anv. but b:-\-.u>e "f the effect til"!..-iiifxr-iicabic .ii~a-:cr- must have on the travelling public's mind. W'.iv two Shi: , -. -a'.ii:ij in .i more or le.-~ open sea. on - c'.c.ir night, should collide will iilwiiv- -ecu -countable to l ..- lanil.-man. lie way have dodged iiiiotically in from ul it fellnw-pedcstrian a .-core of time- and lini.-hed up wet:- ,- b:imp> and grud.'in-' apologies, but thriik— fji the pavement are mere wa-te :>iiji'T .--,-) far ;it- the average pedestrian i- i-onx-erned. whereas the "rule- of the raid" at sea are. we ha\e been led to Iμ sieve, most clearly aid down and po- .-. -- the fullest authority internal ion il ! !;iw < -in gave them. | It i- tbi* fact th»i ni;ike< *u\-h oollw- j iuiL- incxpli.-.i! !c in the landsman except j on the .-upf>ur-it':ou that the lights of fin' vessel, or both, were at fault, or the j officers and look-on", men on one of both I ■Here "wool-guther!n,2." Thre will, of course, be a mo-l .-earL-'j- j til,: inquiry into the cireameUilives >ur- : li.unding the collision, and one aspeit of; the disaster .-hould. and no doubt will, : t.e made the subject of a most rigid in- | \estimation, namely, tin , conduct nf tin: ! i-oJourrd portion •>! the crew of the ] Oceana. who are lumped together under the misJesuiinLT name- <>f "Jia^-ir-." The term "Lascar" -.overs a wide rang' \ in the .Merchant Shipping Act and a .-t:!l ' wider range in the publk" mind. There] i' firactically includes any person in tlis j }'. and O. service who is not .European, I and i- applied indiscriminately t.i Path- j nils from the North-we-st 1-Tontiev. [ Arab.-, negroes, half-breeds and any j Lned ? . The genuine La-cars are usually deck i hand» bailing from the West Coast of , ■India, and are .-uilors by instinct and! heredity. They manned the old Indian ■ tiavy. and often fought well, and in later ! times have shown sterling qualities in j times of stress at sea.. O.i the other liand. the nondescript "Last-are - , such as are found in the stokehold, though no*, normally cowards, are very liable to panic in an emerg-eney. or if not affected in lliis way. are apt to "'He down and take what 'comes to them"' ■without an effort to cave themselves, or to assist in saving ethers. So far as the Oceana is concerned, the narratives of those on board whose lips are not sealed by official connection with {he company, do not distinguish between I he real "Lascars" and the nondescripts, and the descriptions given of the behaviour of the coloured crew differ materially. Passengers roused by the cry of "all hands on dack' , at 4 a.m. are "uerlmp< not the best possible witnesses to the truth, but you cannot ignore altogether their statements as to what oeUirred. .Summed up these statements suggest that at least the major portuou of tiie coloured (-rev.- behaved in a manlier valcitlated to enhance considerably tin- danger of the situation. It was apparently not so much what they did as ..hat they refii.-i-l in do. or were unable In d.> properly i ause of the mental! londiuion to which they had been reduced ' by the collision. Some undoubtedly gave ; »<iy to panic and attempted to take'pov ; sir-~ion of the boats, but the majority a; pear to have contented themselves i villi doing nothing beyond weeping and! v-.ii , hi. or behaving as fatalists who! deeming the catastrophe deliberately i schemed by a Higher Power resigned I themselves to the inevitable. j A SERIOUS PROBLM.M. j it is not the first lime by any means' that coloured seamen have shown them-! solve.- unreliable in a crisi.-. When the! Tasmania lalr-n a I', mid O. ship) w.j- : v rwked tive-and-iwenty years a^o in liio ! .Straits of Bonifaein. the panic among tin- i ].flscars caused a heavy lose of life. When '• the Delhi went a-hore under well-remem-1 bered oirciim-t.i;:-e-. they di.-played th.'ir! u-elessr.css in like manner, and it is oniv ; Datura! that, without waiting for Lie ' -e.-ult of the otticl.il inquiry, people arc now rairfiug the question of their whole- '. sale employment on board vessels of the' British mercantile marine. Time after; time efforts have been made in the ; llou-' of Commons and elsewhere to I deal witn the exceedingly difficult nfoh- I Icrc. ' ! There is. of course, much to be said on both side-*. In the firet place, drunkenness is unknown among them, and painful as it i-.- to admit it, the average British stokers or deckhands seldom come on board sober. Then the Lascar can, according to some authorities, work , in a stokehold that would be intolerable to a white man. They require little : food, two meals a day of curry and rice, and are under excellent control. In I other words, they are "cheap," and Willi put" up with treatment which the white ! *:iilur would resent most emphatically. ! The question of desertion also weighs I with -owners. There arc continual do- i sertions among: Jiritish sailors and fire- i men. but the Lascar seldom takes i ♦"French leave" from his r;hip. 'Hiat is one side of the picture. Of cnur.-e. there is another. The bulk of the nondeai'ripts termed "Lascars" are timorous to a decree, and when danger I threatens are like a dock of cheep. On I board a pa.-sender boat they are, it is Dow ijiritc evident, a source of grave peril, and the opinion that only a very limited proportion of "Lascars" should 1i_ r, in the crew.- of such vessels is very widely hold. Among British .-c.-imen | ' there '- but one opinion. The men de- j ' dare thai there i- not the slightest rea- I .- !i why the l.i-cars should be employ- '• e.i t.i tiie ex-elusion of the British sea | man and stnker. The hear in the Moke- : hold of ,i modern .-hip. in the tropin is! not what it tired to >«.. and if white Tii-'n .nn .-land the stokehold of a "mm;." they .-an stand the stokehold " of a modem liner. lliere are practically To Lascars in "tramps" the men point lint there is a. still wider aspect of the ! subject, which is the position when the: time come-, -when the English naval au-': thoriiies must look to the mercantile i marine to make good the wast.igu of i fivar in the Xavy. On that aspect the : naval expert and British opinion gen- ! erallv id unanimous, and it can be sum- ! mod up thus: "Every trained British ! seajnan and stoker wonld be a source . of strength, and every Lascar (or foreigner, for that matter) in our mercantile marine a source of -rc-ealniess." I

1 SALVAGE PROSPECTS. An important (jucation in regard io lilt , .-inking of the Oceana in the Channel ie whether it "ill be po=dii>lc to salve i tin- heavy con=iynincnt vi {.'"'J- and nili ver bars which were on board. The c.v ! act amount ot the sj>ecie i- £714.610, all lof which is insured in London. In addition to the spevie, the Ooeana I bad on board some ;1,000 tons of cargo worth at lead X'SO pi tun on the averagp, or. say, .i; HM.t.OOW, aDil it may easily i be more. The Ui'canu is not. insured out- . side the company's funds. aii<l as the I*, and < >. practice is to write the value ' ! of their \e--cU down to a very low level. i the actual linaneiaj locs of the steamer 'is nut likely to be felt seriously by the Womrmny. j 1 Experts believe salvage to be possible. ■ for alien-as specie ha.- l>een raised from | iii depth of llXtft.. the depth of water in j 1 which the Ocean a is lying between I Kcacliy Head and Dover is t>tate\l to be j ; between 70 and SO feet only. A depth i iof HiOfi. wa* reached by divers in 1885, ' ' vlica the Spanish steamer Alfonso XII., I carrying ten l>oxe«, each rontainin™ 10.0CH1 Spani.-h jrold coins. ea.ch of the ' value of nearly an English sovereign. i was loet oIT (Irand Canary. J Owing to the great depth, divers of I very heavy build Tvero selected by the ! underwriters to make descents. They I worked for ten months, and altogether I nine boxes were recovered, the contents \ valued at about il 00.1 (Uo— seven by Alcv.----i ander Lambert, who received £4.000. I and two by David Tester, who received J about E 1.000. i The salvage of the Oceana'e specie I may. however, prove an even more diflij cult- t.;-k i'.inii that presented by the ' Alfonso, for it is «saii] that very strong I ami conflicting currents are encountered |;it tiir spot where the ill-fated I*. and O. : liner lie.-, and that in the best of weather ;it will not bo possible for the men to ! ai.rk for more than two or three hours j ; a day. Be that a- it may. the under- ! writer* involved in th? original insurance ■of the c;pe<'ie have been '".ccttitiL: to . cover" and paying very dearly for the j privilege of jsh-elterina behind re-insur-ance. In one ea.-e, it is said, the rale deImnnded and was 60 guineas per cent! ; This :s .1 startlinsr contrast to the orijrii nal premium, -n'hicli »a-, it appears. I about 1/0 per cent.