INDIAN SEAMEN

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 28 April 1910, Page 5

INDIAN SEAMEN

PROPOSAL TO TAX STEAMERS EM PLOYING THEM. REPLY BY SHIPPING SUPERIN- i TENDENT. v _ c [press association.] 5 (Received April 28, 9.55 a.m.) t SYDNEY, April 28. r Mr Trelawney, Superintendent of the ]. Peninsular and Oriental Company, referring to New Zealand complaints 2 about the Auckland service, and the £ suggestion of a special tax on the .-c.--vice attributed to Mr Fisher, declared * that the company was not greatly concerned in the matter. The Auckl iid trips had proved satisfactory and would j he resumed in October, but outside the j European passenger season the service \ would not pay. Every trip cost about £2000, paid in Auckland for New Zea- I land produce, and by far the greater number of passengers were booked to and from Europe. With reference to r the suggested tax, the ports of clear- j ance and destination are London and | Auckland, neither port being in the j Commonwealth. It seems to him, theto- -\ fore, an attempt at special taxation of 'j the companies' vessels on the ground that they employed Indian labor would 1 be a matter for the Imperial Govern- a ment. The Indians were citizens of the t Empire and there appeared some incoasistency in the fact that while Australia j and New Zealand are within the Empire there should be a refusal to acknowledge the status which the Empire ha:-, given to its Indian citizens. The company does not employ Lascars because they are cheap. They cost little, if anything, less than British hands. It employed Lascars because it fc was practically impossible to get a sufficient number of trustworthy British hands to run the company's many services in the way they must run for traffic. Even if the Commonwealth were ( to pay a subsidy instead- of levying a ! tax it would make no difference to the ( fact that the best class of white labor c is unobtainable for high speed boats in j the tropics. Failing tlio best the company employed the best it could get < acclimatised to tropical labor. j