DISCONTENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1937, Page 8

DISCONTENT.

\USTRALIAN NAVY.

SENTENCING OF MEN.

ADMIRAL VERSUS FLEET.

DISQUIETING EVIDENCE. j (From Oar Own CorrespouJeut.) | SYDNEY, February I*. I i'.ic riimoinv of unrest and <lic>atis-j lion in the Australian Na\y follow i Ii other thick and fast, but there it- j vet any sign that cither the High I .la'tiiid or the Federal Minister of . iice is prepared to t;ike theiuj ! u>ly. and the local Pre«< becom- ; more and more sensational ami .iioiiolrative. j iin Wednesday •"Smith's Weekly" | ... ve Us a full page of "scare heads" i . \ oted to this topic, claiming that all! complaints have been fully justified, t the acts of sabotage which it re.(led were all authentic, that there is •reat mass of evidence supporting its . nings about, "trouble in the Navy," i that "Parkhill admits that 'Smith's' ;> s right." "Smith's" makes great lay with the epithets "flimsy" and .responsible." which have been used! . ry freely both by the Naval Board and " e Minister of Defence, Sir Archdaie \:rkhill, in deprecating the suggestion " at there is any real unrest in the ■vy or any adequate ground for it. • parentlv this is the ordinary official v of brushing all grievances and prots aside. But the charges, which -t appeared in "Smith's," are now ng reiterated with emphasis and induce by the "Sun" and the "Daily ■' graph," which maintain that there ! real trouble in the Navy and that) facts should be carefully investi- j • d and grievances proved to exist, >i!d lie redressed lest the jx>sition uild change suddenly from bad to •r^e. "There is no need for public alarm," d the "Sun" editorially last week, •at there might be if naval officers .re allowed to forget that they are servants of the public, to ignore e complaints of the men, and by . :recy and repression make a small station into a festering and dangerous >re." Newspaper Protests. To illustrate the kind of evidence on Inch the newspapers base their procsts, I may quote from a letter writ,en to Mr. E. J. Ward, a well-known labour member of the House of Representatives, by a rating on the Canberra, this seaman says that the men resent .he action of tjxe Admiral in forbidding the use of overalls for dirty work, such -is chipping and painting, because their inform is not suited for such work in til weathers, and they are punished if t is at all out of order at inspection, the men are being compelled to do •xtra work, such as wasliing funnels, on make and mend days," that is. on 'Vedneaday and Saturday afternoons, which are normally half-holidays. The men complain also of severe punishnents enforced for trivial offences—five ia ys' "cells" for asking a midshipman o put back his bedding in his hammock fter he had slept on the floor; seven ays' "cells" for omitting to put a stud a a lieutenant-commander's shirt; ten .■ys for serving the commander's diner on tite wrong side; and so on indenitely. According to this letter it is practiilly impossible for the men to get any dress on shipboard, because if they m plain in a body they are disciplined r organising concerted action, and if ey complain individually they are .outed as agitators and "Communists."

Men's Grievance*. ~ This last difficulty—the impossibility >f representing -the men's grievances -Efectively to their superiors—may c-count for the fact that formal cdmlaints are rare, and may justify the onfident assertion repeated several ;mes recently by Admiral Lane-Poole ~hat the men have no grievances, that .hey make no complaints of any importance, and that the best of feeling exists between ( them and their officers. Unfortunately this somewhat idyllic picture of "life aboard ship," which has been guaranteed and endorsed as authentic by Sir Archdale Parkhill, is • entirely out of keeping with an incident which came to light this week, and has occupied a leading place in our news columns ever since. An able seaman on the Australia was convicted of having thrown overboard a cable jack, and as a punishment he was deprived of two good conduct marks and sentenced to 89 days' imprisonment on Garden Island. The men regarded this punishment as excessive and next morning it was found that the falls ,of the ship's cutter has been severed—presumably by way of. protest. The men as a objvt to sabotage and it was suggested that they might show their feeling on, the matter by contributing each 6d a week to pay for the damage. They refused, and decided instead to use the money in the form of a subscription to help the family of the man whose punishment had caused the trouble.

Orggtafier Paraded. This seaman has a wife and three children, and according to naval regulations Ids sentence meant immediate stoppage of his pay and of his wife's allotment. His shipmates, therefore, collected £12 10/ and sent it to the destitute wife. The commander of the Australia traced the organiser of this collection, paraded him on the quarter deck, lectured him for attempting to assist in the evasion of just punishment and warned him and all the ratings that "if any further collection were taken up the man responsible for it would .be charged with breach of discipline." It is reported that the men are most indignant and resentful at this attempt by the naval authorities to punish the helpless wife and children of a' delinquent already suffering for his offences, and these feelings are certainly shared by a great many people outside the Navy. On top of all this the Fleet has from its training at Jervis y "M** than a ahead of scheduled .J® 6 *. Archibald Parkhill and ae Admiral have denied that anything has happened to shorten the. Uioeimes. But many people are ask-! ng whether there is any truth in the! -umour f*® loss of two torpedoes— i "alued • at £3000 each—was due to I • unrest m the Navy." Also one is ' m o™ to know whetheK the trouble! ver the exclusion of the ratings from' -hs, tennis courts and golf links at! ■vis Bay has been satisfactorily | darned. We heard last week that the I V cry over the men's exclusion from I x, ? public hatha, which the officers were owed to- use, bad produced some T ect. But it now appears that as a

"concession" the men got permission to use the baths at "certain hours," and these turned out to be periods when there were no ratings on leave ashore.

No Public Inquiry. These "pin-prickings" are well calculated to intensify any ill-feeling already at work among the men. But Sir Archdale Parkhill goes on repeating that he is quite satisfied that all is well with the Navy and that he will not consent to any form of public inquiry, which would tend to destroy that absolute public confidence in the Navy on which the foundations of our national defence are based.

,'l"lie Minister would do well to heed the "Daily Telegraph's" warning that "complaints may not find easy expression through the formal machinery set up to deal with individual matters of routine concern: an inquiry would reassure the public and the ratings and would perhaps give the Minister's satisfaction a firmer foundation."

Hut during the past week Sir Arclidale Parkhill has himself received proof that the naval high command is apparently unable to look at naval questions from the Australian point of view. I.ast Tuesday the Australian Coronation Contingent embarked at Melbourne for its trip Home, and the troops were inarched through the streets. Before the parade it was learned that though the Military Board had requested the Naval Board to allow tHe naval members of the contingent to join in the march the naval authorities had refused the invitat ion.

Happily Sir Archdaie Parkhill heard of the diiliculty in time, and as Minister of Defence gave orders that the naval men should march with the rest of the contingent. Also he allowed it to be made public that the Naval Board had desired that the naval section' of the contingent should be sent to England in a different ship and that while at Home it should inarch in parades and reviews with detachments of the British Na vv. On both points Sir Archdaie Parkhill exercised his authority to countermand the proposals of the Xavat Roarer and he deserves the thanks of all Australians for so doing. The "Daily Telegraph'' has stated this aspect of the case with incisiveness: "Not only did the Naval Board have to be forced to allow the naval contingent to Join the Army and Air Force in the parade through Melbourne, but it also expressed a desire to send its men to England by a different ship and to march in the Coronation review not with the Australian forces but with the Royal Navy. It is difficult to imagine anything more contemptuous than this. Our Navy is an arm of the Australian defence forces, not merely a collection of ships on loan from the Royal Navy— and the sooner Admiral Lane Poole and his colleagues realise this the better for them, for our seamen, for our Navy and for Australia itself."