THE MAUI POMARE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 189, 12 May 1928, Page 7

THE MAUI POMARE

QUESTION OF NATIVE

CREW PROTEST TO MINISTER Protesting against the proposal to have the new Cook Island trade steamer Maui Pomare manned by a crew of Cook Island natives, a deputation from the Wellington Seamen’s Union waited on the Minister in Charge of the Department (Hon. Sir Maui Pomare) this week. The Minister intimated that the Government intended to man the vessel with white officers, but that the rest of the crew would be composed ot natives of the cook Islands. As a fact, he was in a position to man the ship from captain to cabin boy with properly qualified natives. Mr. F. P. Walsh, president, and Mr. F. Newfield, secretary of the Seamen’s Union, pointed out that many hundreds of New Zealand seamen were ashore at present unemployed, and that the manning of the new ship with them would reduce the number of unemployed at least to the extent of thirty. The unemployed were trained seamen who followed the calling as their life’s occupation. The Islanders, on the other hand, did not usually enter the calling of seamen. They asked the Minister to reconsider his de-cision-and agree to man the ship with New Zealand sailors working under trade union wages and conditions. If the decision to man the vessel with an Island crew was persisted in they asked that the wages, hours, and conditions generally should be the same as those in the agreement under which the New Zealand seamen worked, and that the members of the crew should be allowed to join the Seamen’s Union.

The Minister, in reply, said he could hold out no hope of altering the decision, which he said had been arrived at after careful consideration by himself and his Department. In regard to wages and other conditions, both the Minister and Mr. Smith (Under-Secretary of the Department) indicated that the terms of the industrial agreement in force in New Zealand could not apply to the Maui Pomare. The crew were to be classified as public servants, and would therefore be placed outside the industrial agreement. A GOOD TRIP According to the latest advice received regarding the vessel, the Maui Pomare has made a good run on the outward voyage from England. She is due to reach Apia on Monday. From Apia she will commence her new service between our Island dependencies and the Dominion. She is due to reach Wellington towards the end of the present month, carrying fruit cargoes from Samoa and Niue Island.