THE AMOKURA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 25 April 1913, Page 5

THE AMOKURA.

THE DEPARTMENTAL REPORT

MY TELEGRAPH —PBESS ASSOCIATION. | . WELLINGTON, April 25. With regard to the recent Departmental enquiry into the alleged flogging of boys on the training ship Amokura, and the demand that a public enquiry into the whole circumstances should be , held, the Hon. H. D. Bell, ActingMinister of Marine, made the following statement to a pressman yesterday: — "The Departmental enquiry by Mr Allport, Under-Secretary of Marine, has been held, Mr Macassey, of the Crown Law Office, being present throughout. Full opportunity was given to anyone who desired to be heard, and many of the boys, as well as some of the public, gave evidence. I am satisfied that all the information necessary to enable the Government to deal with the matter has been obtained, and that no good end would be served by further investigation. There is no authority for the Government, any more than'for any other persons or body, to hold what has been called a 'public enquiry,' except through a Royal Commission. The purposes of a Royal Commission are to obtain evidence of facts and to suggest remedies. The Government has that evidence and does not require suggestions as to the course it should adopt. Corporal punishment has been adminis- } tered for serious offences since the j training ship was established in 1907. The regulations have always left the f matter of punishment to the discretion |of the Commander of the Amokura. j Corporal punishment will not be abolished as an ultimate penalty for serious offences, or for repeated misconduct. It has hitherto been administered with a rope's end on boys' buttocks, the limit in most cases being six strokes, I and the maximum being twelve. The I evidence has disproved the assertion that cruelty or undue severity has been exercised. The boys no doubt bear marks for some days, and in some very |. few cases the skin has been slightly broken, but. there is no instance of a boy being incapacitated from immediately returning to work after punishment. It is probable that the boys themselves, like "most other boys, would prefer corporal' punishment to minor penalities of detention and disrating which are imposed for ordinary offences, and this may have led to a'more frequent application of the rope's end than was necessary for the enforcement of discipline on board. No punishment has in any case been ordered by any other than the captain, and in every case of corporal punishment the captain himself has inflicted it. It is the intention of the Government by regulations to prescribe more particularly offences for which corporal punishment may be inflicted, and (as in the case of the Education Department) to prescribe the nature of the instrument of punishment and the number of strokes that may be inflicted. It is also the intention of the Government to direct that in future corporal punishment shall not' be inflicted in-the presence of the whole ship's company as heretofore, but in the presence of one or two only. As to other complaints made, they were all completely disproved, except that of the^ somewhat circumscribed accommodation, which is due to the small"tonnage of the vessel. If either House of Parliament desires to consider the Deyirtmental report, the report will be I«id on the table after the meeting of Parliament.