THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1894. THE SEQUEL TO THE WAIRARAPA DISASTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1189, 14 December 1894, Page 20

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1894. THE SEQUEL TO THE WAIRARAPA DISASTER.

What is going to be the sequel? The usual sequel in such cases is a flood of excellent suggestions, a mass of pointed writing, a variety of more or less heated discussion, all leading to the record " vox et prceterea nihil” We trust that the present case will be an exception. It certainly has excited an attention wider than anything that has ever happened of its kind in the Colony. When leading journals in London and Sydney write strongly the morning after the verdict of the Court of enquiry, we realise how prominent a position this Colony occupies in the world’s public opinion, and we can estimate the power of the force at hand for compelling reform so urgently needed in' the public interest. We spoke yesterday of the duty imposed on the Union Company of preventing the regulation boat drills from degenerating into ill-regulated farces. The Company has to find out how many more farces of the kind are in existence. But the public interest requires more. It’ requires that the shipping companies Shall be kept up to the mark by State supervision. It is customary to cry out against State supervision at every turn. Even John Bright raised his powerful voice against it when it was proposed for the protection of childhood and womanhood in mines and factories. But the time for regarding such protests has long gone by. If it had not the horrors of that night on the Great Barrier and the disgrace it has inflicted on the mercantile marine of New Zealand should prevent anyone from daring to protest against the intervention of the State. The State compels ship-owners to have a proper sppply of boats and life-saving material. The State should go further and see, not only that these are in order, but also that the crews are familiar with their use. An inspector ought to have tli6 right to go on board any vessel at any time he chooses, and order a boat drill oh the instant. Then it will be seen if the officers and men know their stations and their duty, and are able to do what they have to do with promptitude and despatch. To effect this five minutes of a ship’s time is a bagatelle, and within five minutes from the signal for drill every boat in the ship ought to be not only manned and equipped, but in the water. What crew in the Union Company’s service can show efficiency such as that, which is, moreover, not equal to the efficiency maintained on every ship in Her Majesty’s Navy ? The Sydney Iff orning Hcvctld hit the real blot, we fear, in what looked like a re-, markably strong article on the disaster. The writer ascribed the fiasco of the boat service to the ignorance of all concerned rather than to their malice. There we think he was right. . As we said ourselves, “the bungling and fumbling, the crass ignorance and incompetence displayed were humiliating.” We were referring to the details of the boat service, which could have been learnt by regular and systematic drills. But we fear that our contemporary’s remarks may have a wider scope. If so, a very broad general question suddenly confronts us. How many sailors are there on board the steamers of the Union Company ? How many on board the steamships of any company or owner ? In the Navy, the greatest care is„ taken to keep the ' seamanship ~•• of officers and men to the highest standard. And the success of that part of the system has been shown by many stories of brilliant work. There was one the other day of a British gunboat’s adventures on the Zambesi, and the towing off of the French war-ship Seignelay by Lord Charles Beresford in his ship is another. Seamanship may be defined as familiarity with all the conditions of work at sea.. Is there as much of it as there ought to be in the steam portion of the mercantile marine, a largely increasing proportion? We fear there is not. Take this matter of the boats. We know that the crew of the Wairarapa did not know how to get them into the water quickly. Had they got them afloat, would they have been able to manage them properly ? State inspection to be as valuable a 3 it ought to be, should compel not only boat drill on board ship, but boat practice in the water. It will be objected that the time of seamen cannot be wasted in boats. But seamen are more than haulers of cargo and tally clerks, they have other things to do besides steering, looking-out, Avashing decks and polishing brass. If they cannot manage boats when they have to get into boats to save life, there is no need for them on board ship at all. We are by no means intending to imply that in this respect of the seamanship of its sailors the Union Company is in any worse position than the general run of companies. The New Zealand Shipping Company and the ShawSavill’s have each [a sailing fleet which are used fop the training of officers. Many a good seaman now holding a master’s cerdrawing captain’s pay has been ■ one or other of these fleets. And fso no doAbtit maybe said of the junior officers of the two direct steam services. But

this possession of a large sailing fleet is the exception. It is useless to blink our eyes to the fact that in steamships seamanship is not everywhere up to the standard.. f lhe only remedy is for the State to insist on creating a standard and making everybody concerned live up to it.