FOR SAKE OF THE SAILOR MEN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 135, 8 June 1906, Page 4

FOR SAKE OF THE SAILOR MEN.

Tho recommendation of Mr. BiEhop, S.M., who presided over the enquiry into the capsizing of the Ronga, coincides exactly with the views urged in our columns by Mr. John Hutcheson when the disaster was first announced. Mr. Bishop directs the attention of the Minister of Marine to tho evidence in the enquiry with a view to considering whether it does not indicate the necessity for regulations providing for some supervision of vessels of tho type of tho Ronga and to "ascertain their stability and seaworthiness and sailcarrying capacity beforo they are allowed to proceed to sea." In this opinion, however, the Magistrate's nautical assessors did not concur ; they "did not consider such regulations necessary, and were of opinion that they would'tend too much to hamper trade." Thousands of his fel-low-colonists will concur with a correspondent signing himself "Humanitarian," who writes expressing his amazement at tho refusal ol the assessors to concur in the humane recommendation of tho Magistrate. "What," he asks, "is the use of having men as assessors who would sooner sco their fellow-shipmastera drowned in vessels like the Ronga and Oban than hamper trade!" Of all the experts who testified at the enquiry, we cannot find that there was one who dared to Bubordinato the safeguarding of human life to the necessities of trade in the callous fashion which has commended itielf to the assessors. . At present, as was stated by tho builder of the ill-fated vessel, there" is no Covemment officer who has power to say: "That ship shall not go to sea, because I am not satisfied with the model on which she is built " ; is the privilege of every man in this freo country to build what hf» intends for a ship and send it to sea, even though he has built nothing more naiitical before than a brick-^vall or a hen-coop. ' To the average layman such a state of things carries its condemnation on its face; and at the enquiry experts of such high authority as Captain Willis, surveyor to Lloyd's , Register, and Captain Whitby, pleaded strongly for strict Government supervision. More than ono of tho witnesses suggested the possibility of tho ballast or cargo having shifted r.s the cause ol the disaster, and though one of theni also said that "ho did not know a soa-ster on tho coast of New Zealand thnt used shifting boards," it is' gratifying to t find that the fear of "hampering trade" has pot deterred the -'assessors from concurring in the recommendation of 'Mr. Bishop under this head — viz., " that tho use of shifting boards should be made compulsory in case of such vessels when carrying loose ballast." It will be a disgrace to the humanity of the colony if immodiate steps are not taken to realise all the recommendations of Mr. Bishop, S.M., and we should not have thought a contrary suggestion possible but for tho strangely perverted morality of his assessors. We wero able to state yesterday, on the authority of the Acting-Premier, that the Government has under consideration the appointment of a. qualified naval constructor as inspector of shipbuilding in tho colony, and >to hope that consideration will soon develop to effective action.