MATE PUT IN IRONS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 148, 19 March 1931, Page 9

MATE PUT IN IRONS

Drastic Action Taken By Ship’s Captain QUARREL OVER WINE By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright. (Rec, Jfarch 18, 8 p.m.) Sydney, March 18. Allegations that for a small offence at Papeete he was placed in irons for 24 hours and imprisoned in his cabin for six weeks until the ship arrived at Newcastle to-day were made by Sunde, second mate of the Norwegian steamer June. The Vice-Consul for Norway is conducting an inquiry. Sunde stated that he took a bottle of wine from a bag near the captain’s cabin. When the captain, arrived aboard he ordered the whole crew into the bunker batch, herding them in with a revolver. Later Sunde was locked In the cabin with rusty handcuffs on his wrists. Captain Hannevig’s version is that when he arrived aboard he found there had been almost a riot. The crew had stolen a quantity of liquor and were drunk.

“I held them up with a revolver and armed all the ofiicers with batons,” he said. “Sunde” threatened me with his fists.”

On more than one occasion there has been trouble between master and men on the Norwegian tramp steamer June. Last year when the vessel was trading between Nauru Island and New Zealand with phosphate cargoes a dispute over the quality of the food supplied to the crew resulted in complaints being laid by seamen on arrival in Auckland. According to their story they were given poor food and little of it. They protested, but received no better treatment, so after the June left Nauru they refused duty. The captain said he ordered the men back to duty and, after threats of drastic action had been made, they turned to. More recently the master of the June was charged in Dunedin with failing to sail with a full crew on a coastal run. It was stated that several of the crew had left the ship at a northern port.