SEAMEN FINED

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 3 May 1923, Page 5

SEAMEN FINED

1 * * BRAWLING AND SINGING. .1 s REFUSAL TO WORK. s 1 7 (18X TELEORAPp—P3ESB ASSOCIATION.) L ' CHRISTCHURCH, Mai 2. J Twenty-one members of the stokehold > crew of the liner Dorset were each - fined £5 at the Lyttelton Magistrate's J Court to-day for combining to impede; the progress of the voyage of the ship. - Three of the men were also fined 6s Bd, I one day's pay, for being absent withi out leave. The men were arrested last, j night, after what was described as the . worst demonstration seen in Lyttelton * for years. A witness said the men, [ ; most of whom were in a drunken coni dition, were brawling and singing on r the wharf. The master of the vessel. Captain S. Somers-Vine, said the reftisal of the men to undertake duty was the result of ?. drunken Bolshevik idea. He I also said the whole affair was of a most serious nature, because he had to go round the world in charge of many lives. The whole responsibility [ was his, and if anything went wrong the men came first to him, yet when ( things were all well they reused to obey a lawful order given by him. A » number of men availed themselves of > their opportunity to question the cap- * tain, but most of the questions put | were disallowed by the Bench, because they were not admissible. The second engineer said the men f were given every opportunity to board , the ship, hut they refused. One of the men said that had the captain used tact all would have been , well. Heaphy, one of the men charged, J said he had gone down to the ship on time and found they were short of men, * so, finding "nothing doing," he went " on shore. He and the others did not , want to do extra work, and four hours > at a time was as much as any man > of them could stand at the fires. The captain: I assured 3 Tou that I ' only wanted to get the Dorset to the anchorage. Witness: I never heard you say that.