SHIPS STILL DELAYED

Evening Star, Issue 21790, 4 August 1934, Page 15

SHIPS STILL DELAYED

PRDSEGUTiDNS AT GREYMDUTH [Bps United Press Association.] , 1 GREYMOUTH, August 3.‘ Fivo steamers have been ■ held up here by the seamen’s dispute' .-since Tuesday. They are the 1 Union liners Kaimai, Kaimiro, and Poolta, and-tha Anchor liners Rata and Titoki, They have been held up by the refusal of the seamen to put to sea," although possibly the condition of the bar might have prevented;at least some from.sailing, the depth at high tide now being only 20J feet. The only change in the local position is that the crews of the three Union vessels, numbering about fifty, to-day received summonses to appear in court to-morrow morning .to’ answer charges of disobeying the masters’ lawful commands to take the ships to sea. The Anchor crews expect similar actipn to be taken. , A member of the Kaimai’s crew, John Johnson, aged forty-five,'died,to-night in hospital. He had been carried ashore on the day of the vessel’s arrival last Friday. The seamen state they intend to seek an intjuiry' regarding the circumstances' leading to his death. They declare tbat v he arrived. Here suffering from acute pleurisy, after having been passed as fit for'duty at Westport,, and later at_ Auckland. It’is stated that in each instance he had obtained permission for an .examination by a doctor. The deceased, had to lie up shortly after the Kaimai’s departure from Auckland for Greymouth,

*. CREW SHORTAGES

WELLINGTON, August 3. ' Though at meetings held this week in the four main ports the members of the Seamen’s Union voted/ ‘ almost unanimously in favour of taking their ships" to sea; two vessels' were ‘Unable to leave Wellington to-day. They were thb Union Company’s Kiniand Messrs Holm and (Jo.’s chartered steamer Parera. I The Kini has been delayed at Wellington since last Tuesday—first on account of her crew refusing to take her to sea, and bn Thursday and to-day because she was a man short. The Union Company, has been unable to obtain a man‘to complete the vessel’s' complement, and the Kini is to be paid off and laid up to-moiTOW morning. The Parera, after having been held up for •'several days at Lyttelton, arrived at Wellington last night, and today one ■of her crew failed to rejoin her.’ Messrs Holm and Co. were unable to obtain another man, and her departure,' too, in the meantime' ha« been-postponed until to-morrow. '