ALL DRESSED UP

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 58, 2 December 1930, Page 10

ALL DRESSED UP

Luxury Liner Tourists DELAYS IN BERTHING Annoyances & Discourtesies Dominion Special Service. Auckland, December 1. Considerable feeling exists among the tourists on board the motor liner, the Malolo at what is considered to bo the unnecessary stringency of Customs and health regulations in Australia and Now Zealand, Both officers aud passengers speak in strong terms of “petty annoyances and discourtesies” encountered in .the Commonwealth, and tlie opinion is freely expressed that if the Australia wishes to encourage her tourist traffic she is not going tlie right way about it. The time occupied in berthing tlie liner at Wellington is criticised. "We arrived at Wellington at 2.45 p.m. on Friday,” declared an officer, “and the passengers were all dressed ready to go ashore, yet we were unable to berth until 5 p.m., and during the intervening 2} hour all the passengers could o was to walk impatiently up nnd down the decks watching the daylight hours grow less. That sort of thing may be necessary in the case of the usual mail boats and immigrant ships, but it is totally uncalled for in the case of a cruise ship wtose paSseingers are only going to be in a country for five days,” In Australia the officers declare this kind of annoyance is twice as bad. “At Singapore we took on board an ftgent of the Australian Government,” said one of the officers. “He spent the time on the Voyage to Sydney very usefully issuing propaganda and information about Australia’s attractions, but the whole of his work was ruined by the pighendedhess of tlie Australian health ref ulations, for when we got to Thursday sland* where We stopped to lift a pilot who was to take us on to Sydney, what was my astonishment when a doctor came on board and demanded that all passengers should be paraded on deck at 6 o’clock in the morning to show their elbows! By the time he had finished With us and we were permitted to proceed three hours had been wasted. The officer was reminded that the American port regulations were generally considered to be the strictest in the world.

“I know that,” he replied. “I admit otir port authorities are a pretty ‘hardboiled’ lot, but then we are not seeking tourists. You Australians nnd New Zealanders are looking for it. You send Government agents to my country and spend ft lot of money In advertising your attractions, yet you Will not follow it up nt home. “The health .of our passengers is assured from the start. They are not overcrowded; there is a tremendous amount of space"per person-; they have good healthy food ahd we employ two qualified doctors to look after them. They are not going to stay in your country but merely have a look at it and go away. Then why not make special provision to relax the regulations in their ease? “I suppose our passengers will spend £10,600 in New Zealand in five days. We are hefe, yet What do you do? Compel them to put all their dutiable belongings under lock and seal in a room on the ship until We sail, as if any of them dreamed of leaving any of their belongings on shore. Even the sealing of the ship's bar is unnecessary, for nil duty you reap from it.’ If ypu want to know how to treat yotir tourists, I would commend you to officials in Europe and the Orient. My word, Japan is the place for courtesy on the part of Government servants, and that is a country our passengers enjoy travelling through most of all. “Officers have less to complain about New Zealand than Australia, Which they consider to be overrun by 'red tape officials.’ They are particularly grateful to the New Zealand Government for granting the ship ft free clearance at Auckland, enabling her to come straight to the wharf without medical or Customs examination. “They would never dream of doing that in Australia,” said one officer. "There you get medical and Customs examination in every port you go into.’’