PORT OF ONEHUNGA.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXV, Issue 3594, 25 January 1869, Page 2

PORT OF ONEHUNGA.

CLEARED- OUTWARDS. ' i January 23. Fairy, schooner, 34 tonf, Bower, for Charleston, Wast Coait, with 1,000 feet timber, 20 tons potatoes, 1 ton onions. Passengers— B.

The s.B. Airedale h»d not been signalled when the last 'bus left Onehunga yesterday eveaing*

THE WRECK EEGISTBR FOR 1867. There are two sides to all snbjeots— and, assuredly, the immense extent of our mercantile andcommercisi transactions presents no exception to the rule. One aspect of it excites to a high degree our national pride ; another makes us conscious ft the most painful humiliation. The industry, the forethought, the skill, the method, the courage, and the endurance, represented by that vast portion of out trade carried on by the mercantile jnarme'df the United Kingdom, c.nnnot come uuder even the most momentary notice of the reflective mind, nor c»n the incalculable benefit* they are the means of, conferring upon the country be ever so roughly estimated, nor the number, variety, and magnitude of the interests affected by them ba glanced at,' without stirring up emotions of woDder and admiration, and making our bosoma swell with the proud thought that we are members o£ a community in which Btich gldrious results are wrought out. Vet. few people, perhaps, are fully informed of the' real dimensions of the shipping trade d one ra connection with the British hlta! They hare, it i 3 true, a general idea of its gigantic proportions ; but most of them will start with surprise when they are told, on unquestionable authority, that nearly hnlf a million Bhips, bearing a tonnage but little short of 70,000,000, and freighted with commodities valued at £800,000,000, pass to and from our ports every year. This is the bright side of the picture, and the most cursory glance at it may well kindle a glow of patriotic exultation. Thoreis, however, a less agreeable aspeot which we are sometimes compelled to look at, and the Board oE Trade; by ' its ' Annual Wreck Register, reminds us that there is much — far too much — appertaining to the conduct of this vast amount of trade which no roan should, be able to think of without a mingled feeling of pain and shame. During the year 1867 there were 2,513 shipwrecks, representing a loss of upwards of 464,00,0 tons, and of 1,333 lives — being an excess of 224 vessels wrecked above the number recorded iti the preceding year, and, we are 1 sorry to add, a corresponding excess of lives lost. In comparison with the grand total of marine business annually done, the figures m*»y strike the reader as falling far beneath what might have been anticipated. This is so, and yet there is not sufficient reason why they should have amounted to half their 2>reaeut height. There are casualties enough at sea which can awaken no other feeling than that of sympathy for misfortune — wrecks involving aa awful destruction of life and property ' which can only be deplored. lln reference to these, submission is the state of mind enforced upon us, but submissi6n which by no means excludes a sense of distress. We grieve, but are unable to impute blame. We bow cur heads and recognise the irresistible working of the Supreme Power whose word "even the wmda and the seas obey." . But we learn from the Wreck Register, that, of the 2,513 vessels lost or damaged during the yearrlBG7, and of which 2, 1 13 are known to have belonged ( to Great Britain and its colonies, no fewer than 447 came to grief solely in consequence of the negligence of their owners, masters, or seatnen — in other words, 447 casualties were due to preveutible causes. There were 411 vessels in ali that foundered at sea ; and how large a propoition oE these were rotten with age, utterly unseaworthy, overladen, or oarelessly navigated, it is impossible to ascertain. But gome light ip thrown upon the question by the following ' fact*. The Board of report §27 casualties, in vytyefy total lo&p or partial damage was sustained, "to ha'je befallen vessels between thirty and ijffcy years o}d $ gQ to sh.ips between fifty and sixty ye*ra o}d ; 3fj tq yeperable craft between sixty and seventy j § from, spyenfcy Jo ejgkby 5 3, from eighty tq ninety j if frqm. nmety to one Jtmndred j and: I a.bo?e, a cenjury ojd, -■* *»i«*e must necessarily have been in a very „ -~ A { * wises a blush of Many oc — advanced state of decay ; »u.. -- shame when we are informed that any shipowner bearing an Englishman's name, audtherefore committing, to some extent, the reputation of his country to his acts, should choose, in pursuit of gam, thus deliberately to place in imminent an 4 needJeaa pep^ the lives of his own countrymen.' f The seafaring life is always one of gre»t hardship as well as danger. That hardship it is our d.uty to diminish, that danger we are bound to avert, by all the means that fall within our reach. To a consider* able extent, careful legislation and an efficient! *<[mu mistration of law, io. th 9 absence of a conscientious regard to what is due from shipowners and masters to their seamen, must do the one, and the provision! of benevoleuca liberally carried into effect muBt secure the other. Society owes muoh to the gallant class of men who, in contributing sq largely $9 national greatness and prosperity, constantly rwk not merely their personal comfort, but their livei, in pursuit of their calling. No doubt something considerable has already been done towards protecting defenceless sailora from the unnecessary and unjustifiable miseries to which a selfish greed of gain too frequently exposes them. They ought not to be sent out in vessels either so indifferently equipped, so undermanned, or so rotten from age aa to be inoacitatod from meeting, without total destruction, the. ordinary buffefciog to whiph »U Seagofng praf£ aig liable. We forbear troubling our readers -yith more statistics ; but the facts 'brought out in the useful but most painful register, to which we have referred show that by far tod lar&e a proportion of the eljips which were wrecked off. .our coasts laeb year were overtaken by that calamity when the force of the wind was ( muoh less than 3fhat a* wel}'-|qund "hip might hare sustained, wjthouf; the smallest damage. Carefully-considered laWs and str|ct inspection shield our sailors from a vast amount 6f the suffering, the anxiety, and the peril they have now to ensure. Still, in spite of the best-framed regulations and the most vigilant enforcement of them at our ports), the elements will occasionally baffle ajl human skill and precautions. Storms will cafch ships, at time*, Jo places beset with dangers, and wind and sea jrfi} bring to bear against them forces which if; is impol; sible to resist. It is here that the beneficent liberality of the public hns been found to avail in the rescue of human life. The Royal National Life-boat Institu? tion, duiing the year 1§67, has been instrumental, by its direct efforts or'by its indireo^, infjiieace unpa kindred agencies, in snatohing from the yeYy raaw,pj the raging ocean not fewer, perhaps, than fiv« thousand persons. Its boat", distributed along our coast*, are numerous, but all too fe«v. They are manned, when wanted,' ' by 1 crews ' whose daring courage and consummate skill are worthy of all admiration. The feats they have achieved in the proseciltion of their' adventurous mission would, if duly phronjcled, gonstityta a record the romance of whijbh ja only to b*e aurnaioed by the utilitarian, or, jadpe properly" speaKing, I ffie humanitarian, results witfy which it lias enriched our" social history. "Jt is an. institution which! speaki for itse!| by its noble d,eeda, anfj whicfy speaks to every heapt. lit is 0; no political party. It has no sectarian aipjs. It follows mfl.n, simply because they are men, into imminent peril, and attempts, and to a gratifying extent successfully attempts, to succour those who are menaced by the devouring waves, and bear them off to safety, tts object; and its performances' are like worthy of the widest sympathy and support. N& inititntio'n shed* a brighter lustre upon the reputation of the country. None trains its servants to a hardier oy mor<j Heroic enterprise. Nona makej itf appeal f q morb 1 disinterested 11 motives, c lTfc|°t^e i^«fcdett plgfeg the facts' 'recorded' in fcile Anmfal Wreck Kegiujier side by Bide with those embodied in the reports o| the Life-boat Institution, and he will have destruction and recovery, death and life/ in j«xtt^pss|Bo£,' and pop jointly pleAding^ fpr, tta man wjro nayirf*ts our aeoi:- •Protection^from'prgv'enttble dAngert,{bj^p la danger^ wbjch cannot avgrted, *»tfi^h,jdw«* such men arc entitled tip expeotjrqm jfhe ,qomn^uqity upon whom they are the m^ns of conferriog^ines. timable Jbenefits. We trjiat th»^ year ty xeaij, will have, an increasing meainre of bqfch. — jltnatrafafi Lopdorp 2gey>M. . ' ,-, u „' llIV \ ,(