STRANDED STEWARDS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 69, 18 September 1930, Page 10

STRANDED STEWARDS

RESULT OF TAHITI WRECK

NO SHIPWRECK RELIEF

ffjme dissatisfaction is felt among the Tahiti's stewards that they have not been given monetary assistance by the Shipwreck Belief Society to help them to carry on until they are again able to secure employment, which will probably be when the new Monowai is reconimissioned in November. It is pointed out that the stewards lost practically all they had when the vessel went down, and most of the money they received when the Union Company paid them off went towards buying clothes and other necessaries. They consider that, in iew of the fact that the wreck occurred between New Zealand and Barotonga, which is under New Zealand's jurisdiction, it could be held to have occurred in New Zealand waters, and the Shipwreck Relief Society could consequently have made them a grant.

The headquarters of the Shipwreck Belief Society are in Dunedin, and when it was reported to the society that many members of the crew of the Tahiti, including sixty stewards, had complained that no relief had been made available to them by the society, the reply was made that under the rules of the society no relief can be given to the crew or passengers of a ship which is wrecked outside New New Zealand waters. The Tahiti disaster occurred hundreds of miles from New Zealand, and consequently the society is bound by its rule to refrain from offering relief.