TOFUA BOYCOTTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 260, 2 November 1928, Page 8

TOFUA BOYCOTTED.

DISPUTE WITH SEAMEN.

ISLANDERS OBJECTED TO.

"ALL-WHITE" CREW DEMANDED. \ VESSEL MAY BE HELD UP. No crew is offering for the Uniou Co.'s Island steamer Tofua, which is announced to resume her running tomorrow after overhaul. A dispute has arisen with the seamen over the number and nationality of the hands she should carry.

In the past the Tofua has carried a mixskd crew of white men and Islanders, and it has been the practice for her to leave Auckland with one boiler cut out. Before leaving Suva on her return voyage she usually signs on extra Islanders and uses all boilers. * The extra men are paid off in Auckland when the vessel arrives here and are taken back to Suva as passengers.

The white seamen object to this arrangement and are also asking for an all-white crew. Relations between the Islander§ and the Europeans, it is stated, have not always been cordial, a.id the seamen are taking advantage oi' the signing-on of the new crew to put their demands before the company.

The cooks and stewards have not joined in the movement, but they are unable to sign on until the stokers and deckhands have done so. It was announced that the crew would bo signed on at 2 o'clock this afternoon, but, although some of the men who had been in the vessel before were standing round outside the shipping office for a while, they soon dispersed again.

Representatives of the men are conferring with the Union Co., and it is hoped that an amicable arrangement will be reached, and that the men will sign on this afternoon. So far, the dispute is not regarded as serious.