SHIP DESERTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 10

SHIP DESERTERS

ALARMING INCREASE

LURE OF LABOUR CONDITIONS

Attracted ashore by high wages and short working hours, members of the crews of overseas vessels have been .deserting their ships at New Zealand ports in increasingly large numbers during the last few months, states the "New Zealand Herald." The hopes of £5 a week for 40 hours' work ha^e not always materialised, however; and many of the deserters have returned to the port? looking for another ship. : Ihe extent of desertions constitutes a problem the gravity of which is fully recognised by the police, Customs officers, and shipping companies.

Officials who are closely in touch with the position state that there are as many as 20 cases of desertion every month, mostly from cargo vessels arriving .from England. It is stated that deserters come most frequently from coal-burning ships and that it is by no means uncommon for one such vessel to lose half a dozen men round the New Zealand coast. Warrants are issued, of course, for the arrest of the men, but the practice -of deporting offenders has lapsed. , DISPARITY IN WAGES. There seems to be no doubt that the men are attracted ashore by labour conditions. ''When British ships are in port," one official said, "firemen and seamen who earn about' £10 a month are working side by side with wharf labourers who earn that much a week. The men from the ships do not stop to think that they get their keep in addition to their wages, but decide to .come ashore in the hope of 'easy pickings.' In the majority of cases they are soon disillusioned," the official continued. "Some of. them certainly manage to get into Public Works camps, where, with a false name on their union tickets, they are reasonably secure, but others drift back to the cities. Sometimes they are arrested and spend a few weeks in gaol- and tHen, more often than not, they manage to get on sustenance. The trouble of it all is that the majority concerned are not a desirable type of immigrant." ISSUE OF WARRANTS. A case in point arose in the Police Court in Auckland when a man who had deserted his ship, the Tairoa, at Wellington on April 12, was sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. "There is too much of this going on," the Magistrate said. "I am told that at present there are 19 warrants out for deserting sailors." The desertion problem is practically confined to seamen from British steamers. In the case of vessels with foreign crews, a bond of £100 is demanded for each man, and, although in several cases these bonds have been forfeited, the captains-financial responsibility generally results in adequate precautions being taken. In shipping circles the opinion is fairly generaly held thai the increase in the number of deserters warrants early investigation by the Government wtih a view to determining some line of action designed to act as a deterrent.