Correspondence.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7743, 14 May 1887, Page 3

Correspondence.

The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed by correspondents. MARINERS' RELIEF FUND. Sin,— The community of Napier may well be grateful to you, I think, for your opportune suggestion of a " Mariners' Relief Fund " as a most suitable form in which to give expression to our feelings of loyal attachment to our gracious Queen in this of Jubilee. While wo rejoice with them tluit rejoice, we should be ready to weep with them that weep. In nothing has our belovad Sovereign more endeared herself to her people than by her unfailing sympathy with widow and the orphan, and her prompt succour on occasions of calamity and distress. And a fund that would have for its object the relief of sufferers by the many casualties to which mariners are exposed, would be a fitting tribute to the benign and illustrious reign of Queen Victoria,- Empress of the Seas, from this distant corner of her vast dominions, still widened and upheld by the courage and endurance of our seaman. The immediate application of the fund will, of- course, be the relief of those whoare pufferers through the calamitous wreck of the Northumberland. But if, as I fain hope, the contributions to snch a Jubilee Pund.as you propose will far exceed what may be required for the present necessity, the excess might well be the nucleus of a permanent fund for meeting similar cases of distress, when such emergencies arise as are inseparable from the hazardous occupation of a port. I beg to enclose a contribution of five guineas to the " Queen Victoria Jubilee Mariners' Relief and Widow and Orphan Fund."— Your:), &c, Edward C. Waiapu, Bishop's Court, May 13. [It will be seen that this excellent suggestiou is on all-fours with the conclusion arrived at by the Jnbilee committee. — Ed. 11.8.11.]