The Wreck

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19805, 18 December 1929, Page 10

The Wreck

All New Zealand recognises thankfully and with relict' that the wreck of the Manuka, while it might easily have been a terrible and cruel disaster, was disastrous only in material loss. The news was startling, and more than startling-; there is always something that shocks and stuns and dismays in the news that a ship has been lost. But the assurance that all on board were safe counted far more heavily than anything else. First responses to such an occasion can hardly be anything except emotional; but it will perhaps occur to many people, more or less forcibly, that we tend in New Zealand to be shaken by reports of shipwreck on our coasts and in our waters, all the more deeply because they are i - are; and that they are rare is a noteworthy fact, because the I Jew Zealand coast is not on the whole nn easy and hospitable coast, and its safeguards are by no means ample. They may be barely sufficient, but they are no more than that; and the result is that a heavy responsibility i-s tin-own on those who navigate our waters. The responsibility is sustained with a care and effw cieuc-y that need no praise—and seek none —beyond the almost unbroken history, every year, of complete security in travel by sea. But every such exceptional mishap is of course a reason for the enquiry that automatically follows. The officers of the ship face an investigation into their care of it and its freight; and no tribunals are more severe and searching than those which are set up to establish the causes of disaster at sea, and no findings, perhaps, are more stern in pei-sonal justice than theirs. But it may" be suggested that every such particular investigation ought to be a reminder that responsibility rests with the people and Government as well as with shipping companies and their officers, and that attention to the duty of contributing all that regulation and equipment can contribute to safety should never be relaxed. Ship-masters are punished if they fail in vigilance or skill; Governments, if they fail, are not.