MAHENO STILL HELD UP.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15110, 28 October 1914, Page 5

MAHENO STILL HELD UP.

A SERIOUS POSITION. (SPECIAT, TO "THE PRESS.") AUCKLAND, October 27. There will be no Sydney steamer arriving at Auckland on. Saturday next. The Union Company's Maheno is still laid up at Sydney, and her non-depar-ture from Port Jackson to-morrow means that a" month "will hare elapsed without the-arrival of a Union Company's steamer from that port. The difficulty of obtaining firemen is given as the reason for the failure of the Maheno to take up the running. The j fact that she has now been laid up I for nearly a month has given rise not J only to serious inconvenience to Auck- i land business people and the travelling I public, but also to more or less dis-1 turbing rumours. It has been currently! asserted that tho trouble has not really been with the firemen, but is due to , the fact that since, the war started busi- j ness has.fallen off, with the result that the Sydney-Auckland service is being maintained at a loss, and the shipping companies are not over keen about keeping up a regular weekly timetable. This assertion, Mr Rudd. of tho Auckland office of the Union Steam Ship Company, emphatically repudiates. The reason that tho Maheno will not sail, he states, is simply because no crew is forthcoming for the engine-room. The moment this difficulty can be overcome, tho regular service will be resumed. The action of the Union Company in reducing the boiler power was, ho contends, perfectly justified. The Maheno was recently overhauled at a cost of several thousand pounds in her engineroom department, and it has. in consequence, been possible to maintain the Auckland-Sydney service on reduced steam pressure in throwing one of the boilers out of commission. Therefore, stated Mr Rudd, the company did what it was perfectly entitled to do under the shipping regulations. Tho discontinuance of its use did not represent one bit more work for the firemen engaged on the other boilers. It simply meant that the time occupied on tho journey was a little longer than it otherwise would be. Moreover, nothing would be gained by making the trip in better time than is now possible. It is, ho urges, of no benefit to anyone to arrive in Auckland late on " Saturday night. "With one boiler out of commission, the Maheno can reach Auckland by 9 o'clock on Sunday morning. Tho manning schedule, added Mr Rndd, prescribed that there should be so many firemen to each fire. To that schedule the company fully subscribed. No fireman was asked to do one iota more now than when all the boilers were in commission. It was a matter for the company to say how many boilers should be worked ° na Sfl ip> not the firemen. That was-the point ovo r which trouble had arisen, and was the solo reason why tho 3laheno was still laid up in Sydney.