DESERTION BY SAILORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13703, 20 March 1908, Page 6

DESERTION BY SAILORS.

A TROUBLESOME QUESTION

MORE ALLURING PROSPECTS.

The anxious time experienced by the masters and engineers of ocean-going vessels visiting New Zealand ports, on account of the frequent desertions of members of their crews, is well illustrated in a series of interviews published by the Wellington Post. It is staled that the number of desertions in Wellington alone amounts to between 500 find 600 a year, and that there seems to he no steps taken to prevent viiem. Steamers with their holds tilled to the hatches, and all ready for sea, are delayed for want of firemen or .seamen; sailing vessels, with everything otherwise in order, are hung up, not for the wind, which may lie at the moment a grand north-westerly breeze, but. for seamen who, having signed on, and cashed their advance notes, are lying low until the ship yets into blue water.

Sonic dolorous tales are told by master mariners and engineers of the trouble they have with their crews as soon as the ships get into any of the four big ports of New Zealand. The steamer New Orleans is a case in point. On the run from New York to New Zealand "there was never a better set. of men," slid the chief engineer. •■Our trouble began at Auckland. "We leftone man behind flu-re. He got 14 days for refusing duty. Two others followed his example when we. were out. at sea, on our way to Wellington. They were put in irons. When we made fast to the wharf here they were down below. Shortly afterwards they were missing, handcuffs and all. They have been joined by a third man, and so now you know why we are wanting four firemen." The chief engineer of the Rimutaka attributed the trouble with firemen in New Zealand ports to the toxic effects of the colonial brew. " There is no harder life that I know of," he observed, "than that of a fireman, and there is no class that is so much looked down upon. It is in human nature to desire, and, if possible, to obtain, the forbidden thing, and so when a man is compelled to go without a drink for six or seven weeks, be very naturally gratifies this long thirst at the first opportunity. What happens? The firemen is bowled over with a couple of pints of beer. It takes more than two pints of English beer to upset a fireman. He wants quantity, not strength; he yearns for a long, deep think of beer, and he gets it in a Continental port, say, Hamburg, but with none of the unfortunate effects of the colonial article. Firemen are not becoming worse, but rather better than they used to be. They are getting more sense, and I attribute that to the higher educational standard."

In regard to the constant defections of seamen, it is stated that the alluring prospect of a changeful coasting life, £6 10s to £7 a, month wages, and the best of food, are attractions too powerful to be resisted. The high wages and better conditions of service in the intercolonial trade account for the desertions which take place on deep-water ships, both sail and steam, that visit New Zealand. To the average sailor. a change is desirable from the monotony of long voyages, and, in any case, things can never be worse in New Zealand than they are-' at Home ; the situation has been discussed in the forecastle every day on the. trip out 'the pros .and the cons have been weighed the one against the other. The intention formed, there comes a night when it is' executed, the fireman or the sailor walks ashore with a pipe, a plug of tobacco, a knife, perhaps a shilling or two—often not—and he returns to that ship no more; but this undemonstrative entry into the Dominion escapes record in the statistics of additions to the population of New Zealand from without.