CONFERENCE ON NAVIGATION LAWS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 142, 16 June 1906, Page 4

CONFERENCE ON NAVIGATION LAWS.

A cablegram which we received from Melbourne on tliß 6th inst., and the statement which the Acting-Premier was good enough to make to one of our reporters on the following day, indicate a very wise change of front on the part of tho Government with regard to the proposed conference on the navigation laws of the Empire. When the proposal was first made by the Imperial authorities, some two years ago, the New Zealand Government, which had just secured tho Royal Assent to the Shipping and Seamen Act, 1903, after more than a year's delay, did not see its way to fall m with the suggestion, but our lat« Premier's visit to Australia appears to have t been instrumental in re* versing this decision. It was at any rate announced that, the Imperial authorities continuing to desire th«t the conference shall ue hold as soon as possible, Mr. Deakin and Mr. Seddon had been joining in the endeavour to secure a date near that fixed for the Colonial Conference, It is natural

that the Premier of, the Commonwealth should be wide awake on this question, for it was only just the other day that the commission appointed by his Government to investigate the navigation laws submitted an exhaustive report, which attracted much attention by its drastic recommendations. The fact that nearly one-third of the seamen in the British mercantile marine are foreigners or Lascars, and that the proportion is steadily increasing, is surely deserving of the closest attention from the statesmen of an Empire • whose seaborne commerce is its very life-blood. Tho recommendations of the Australian Commission were largely concerned with the improvement of the conditions of the service in order to make it more attractive to men of our own race; and -that the coming conference may deal effectively •with the same aspect of the question it is wisely proposed -that the seamen and shipowners of the various parts of the Empire as well as the respective Governments shall b e represented. If, it making the appointments for this colony, our Administration desires to rise above party, and to act according to the standard of public duty which its late head proclaimed in Australia, it has the opportunity of selecting in Mr. John Hutcheson the ideal representative of the seamen of New Zealand.