THE KAKANUI TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 995, 27 March 1891, Page 29

THE KAKANUI TRAGEDY.

MR HATCH IMPEACHES THE LATE GOVERNMENT. (per press association.) Invercargill, March 23. The weather being very unseasonable, Mr Hatch had not a large audience to-night in the Theatre, when he delivered his exposition of the Macquarrie Island episode and the circumstances leading up to the despatch of the s.s. Kakanui to bring away his workmen. Mr Hatch was particularly severe on the Hon T. Fergus and Mr Wilson, Assistant Secretary of the Marine Department, and accused them of being actuated by malice, which he alleged arose from previous disagreements he had had with them. He read telegrams which he had sent to the Government, informing them that there was not the slightest necessity tor sending the vessel to the Islands, and that the Kakanui was not fit for the work, these being backed up by Messrs Ward, Kelly, and Mackintosh, M.H.R.’s ; aud telegrams had also passed in which Mr Hatch remonstrated with the Minister for Marine for interfering in a way likely to cause him a serious loss. The reply returned was that if tha rumours were true a serious obligation rested on Government to relieve the men. Mr Hatch stated that during a visit to the Islands he and the Gratitude’s crew actually used the stores for lack of which the men lost were alleged to be starving, and that the greatest discomfort the shore party had had was want of fuel, for which they had substituted blubber, skins, &c. Tobacco, tea, and sugar were also done, but there was plenty of other food. Mr Hatch asserted that he had not made a sixpence out of it as yet, principally because of the action of Government during the past twelve months re transfer of the Islands from Tasmania.