MERCANTILE JACK.

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 948, 12 September 1918, Page 6

MERCANTILE JACK.

His in the Danger Zone.

THE members of the Merchant Service Guild will have the sympathy and support of the public in their just claim that more satisfactory arrangements should be made to provide compensation being promptly paid to of the mercantile marine officers and men. who become victims to enemy action in the danger zones. The members of the Guild are only asking that the New Zealand Government should fall into line with the Imperial authorities in compelling the endorsement of ships' articles with a compeoisation clause. One point upon which the Guild is justly insistent is that the shipping companies should be held responsible for the dependents "in the interval of time occupied in fixing up th© business after an accident. "

*. * . ■ * * In this connection a very extraordinary statement lias been made. It is alleged that the widow of! the late chief officer of the Aparima had not up till now received anything in the shape of compensation, although it is nine months since the vessel was sunk by the enemy. If the facts are as stated, somebody, either the owners of the vessel, or the British Admiralty, by which we believe it was chartered, should be brought to ...book for the scandalous way in which the lady in question has been treated.

On the general question of compensation all we can say is that the shipping companies, which are making such fabulous profits out of the war, should be compelled by legislation to make a most liberal provision for the widows and dependents of the brave fellows who may meet their death in the danger zones. Where the vessels are chartered either by the New Zealand Government or tlie Admiralty the compensation should at least be as promptly paid as are the allowances tO' officers and men in the British Navy and Army and our own Expeditionary Forces.