To the Editor of the New-Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1720, 3 September 1862, Page 3

To the Editor of the New-Zealander.

Sin, —I should feel obliged by your giving publicity, through the medium of your columns, to one rather singular omission connected with the maritime portion of the arrangements made for the shipping visiting your port. It has been truly remarked by residents here that the ships discharging cargoes from England can obtain any amount of assistance in so doing. It is likewise truly said that nothing can prevent our crews from deserting, and with little chance of ever regaining them, even though liberal rewards be offered to the police for their apprehension; but it is also as truly discovered by the captains of ships that after their crews have run, that there exists no adequate means of engaging others. And why? merely because there is not, in your city of Auckland, with its beautiful harbour and its tributarywaters from which so many of your coasters are owned, and which is annually visited by many thousand tons of British vessels, a shipping officer, agreeably to our Board of Trade regulations through whom the commanders of these vessels large and small can either obtain their crews or be enabled to depend upon getting them on board after they have signed the ship’s articles. This grievance is one that affects not only the merchant captains trading here, but the merchants themselves also, if not quite so directly, yet surely and perceptibly, for when the detention of our vessels becomes known in London, depend upon it our owners will as a recompence require higher freights for New Zealand than the neighbouring colonies, and more particularly should the present “ gold fever,” now so fatal to our interests, increase hereafter.

My ship has now been several days ready for sea, but detained at a sacrifice of both money and time; not so much for scarcity of seamen (for those I can obtain at increased rate of wages), but principally because there is not a properly appointed shipping master empowered with authority to engage crews, and endowed with the means of enforcing their going in the ship after signing for the voyage. Sailors come to the Custom House hero (an establishment unusual for such a purpose in other parts of the world); they sign the articles for which the captain is charged two shillings each (in England wo only pay one); we gave him an advance note for a month’s pay, and very often never see them afterwards. Some get their notes cashed and then proceed to Coromandel or Otago as most agreeable to their fancy. Others again cannot get their notes cashed, and consequently cannot go in the ship, having no means of paying their debts or obtaining the few necessaries for the voyage. The result is, that after having been a week engaging a crow, the captain probably finds two men actually on board, out of the dozen whose names are upon the articles, and all because there is no shipping master, no shipping office. I feel certain that this most necessary requirement needs only to be properly represented to the Government to be entitled to and receive that attention which such a drawback to the despatch of the English vessels trading to this port must assuredly be deserving or. _ Should these remarks bo hereafter instrumental in lessening the annoyances which myself and others are at present labouring under, I shall feel some satisfaction in having written them. Hoping I have not trespassed too much upon your valuable time and space, I remain. &c., W, Esooxr, Commander “ Royal Charlie,*i