QUARANTINE ABSURDITIES

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 102, 2 May 1919, Page 3

QUARANTINE ABSURDITIES

STRANDED NEW ZEALANDERS,

(Fr.OM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 24th April.

Pneumonic influenza is rampant in Victoria and New South- Wales, and is not now present in New Zealand. Yet, until a few days ago, the perfectly ridiculous position existed that ships coming to Australia from New Zealand were quarantined, while ships from Australia to New Zealand were not. Lately, New' Zealand has imposed a quarantine against Australian ships, but the local quarantine against New Zealand ships has gone on until now, when there seems a possibility of a more sensible arrangement being made. The refusal of the New Zealand Government to allow passengers from Australia to. enter New Zealand at all — for that is ho_ the latest decision of the health authorities there is interpreted—has caused an outcry here. This,, combined with the very vigorous criticism of tho New Zealand health authorities going on in connection with the Niagara's detention at Auckland, is creating here anything but a- complimentary opinion of the Dominion's Department of Health. Here is how the Age comments on the closure of the New Zealand x^orts against passenger traffic: "Local health authorities are unable to account for this extraordinary position taken tip by the New Zealand Health Minister, for it appears to have no parallel in the history of any two countries, mutually concerned in the treatment of disease. In effect the Minister has divested himself, completely of the recognised responsibilities and cost of quarantine— at the expense of stranded New Zealanders in Australia and Australians having business and other relations with New Zealand. The Minister and tho Chief Medical Officer of New Zealand,, it is admitted, came in for a good deal of scathing criticism concerning the laxity thai permitted an ingress of pneumonic influenza into New _ Zealand by way of Auckland, but their jump from one extreme to another, it is pointed out, will not improve their standing in that connection. Rather, it will but give colour to the suggestion that health and quarantine matters in New Zealand are conducted with a degree of stupidity out of harmony with these supposedly enlightened times-. Since the beginning of the year the whole number of 'flu' cases in Australia has not equalled the number that took place in Auckland alone in six weeks."

Numbers of New Zealanders are stranded in Sydney in consequence of the' embargo on passenger traffic, and they are extremely wrath at what they term the callousness of the New Zealand Government in declining to give assistance to women and children whose cases are straitened. It is stated that efforts to obtain relief through the New Zealand Government offices have failed, as the Government has given no instructions to aid necessitous cases.

A hard case is related in the Sun last evening: One woman who is stranded in Sydney with' two children, and whoso husband, a resident of Wellington, is out of work, recently sought assistance. She states that she was informed at the New Zealand Government offices that if she could not get aid from her friends she should apply for a refund of the passage money paid for herself and for her two children. It was pointed out by indignant Now Zealanders who had already assisted, tho woman that if this course were pursued she- and her family would be indefinitely stranded in Sydney. Attention was also directed to the fact that New Zealanders were held_ up in Sydney owing to the action of their Government, which should therefore help them, where necessity existed. Several New Zealanders who were interviewed yesterday spoke indignantly of the fact that, the passengers who intended to journey to New Zealand by tho Moeraki .were taken off the vessel after they had gone aboard with their luggage. They had expressed their willingness to go into quarantine for seven days after their arrival in New Zealand, but even this did not forward their case. They now aver that they havo received advices from New Zealand stating that the crow of the Moeraki was allowed to land! very shortly after the arrival of the vessel in New Zealand.

So desperate are many of the cases where women and children are concerned that two residents of New Zealand-, who also are held up in Sydney, have sent a cable message to the' Mayor of Wellington asking if he could give financial assistance to the New Zealand women and children stranded in Sydney.l

When questioned regarding the course which the. New Zealand Government was pursuing with regard to necessitous cases, the Government agent (Mr. Blow) said that he was aiding in every way possible by giving advice, bub that he had no authority to givo financial assistance. He stated that he had told applicants for monetary help that they should appeal to friends, or that they should obtain, a refund of their passage money.