“A SERIOUS OMISSION”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8457, 17 June 1913, Page 9

“A SERIOUS OMISSION”

NO HELP IF VESSEL HAD BEEN ON FIRE. Special to the “Times.” CHRISTCHURCH, June 16. Under tbe heading “A Serious Omission,” the “Lyttelton Times” says, editorially:—“The facts placed before one of our reporters yesterday in connection with the mishap to the ferry steamer on Saturday morning seem to call for an early re-arrangement in the telegraph service. The Maori dropped a propsilor blade on the trip from Wellington, and reported the accident, which meant a late arrival in Lyttelton, to the steamer Niwaru, with a request that a wireless message should be sent to Wellington for re-transmis-sion southwards. The Niwaru’s operator ‘got’ Wellington after a delay of two hours, due apparently to the fault of the land station, and then learned that a message could not be sent to Christchurch because the telegraph office was closed from midnight to 3 a.m. The Maori arrived in Lyttelton without news of the reason ot tier delay having reached this city. The serious aspect of the incident is realised when it is remembered that the message, which could not be transmitted, might have been an urgent appeal for help. The chief purpose of the wireless stations which the Government is erecting is to keep steamships in touch with the ports, and the value of the installations is greatly diminished if Christchurch and Lyttelton are cut off from the rest of the Dominion for the first eight hours of every day. The Government should not accept for a day the risk revealed by the failure to deliver the Maori’s message.” “SOMETHING RADICALLY WRONG.”

“I think,” said Captain Haytor, of the Niwaru, to a reporter, “that there is something radically wrong with the system in Wellington, and before the radio station can be of much use -io the Dominion, especially the South island, arrangements should be made for Keeping an operator on duty in Christchurch or Lyttelton during the closing hours to attend to urgent wireless calls. Supposing that the Maori, or my own ship, had been on fire or had met with some other mishap, and had wanted urgent assistance from Lyttelton, we would have been told that, as the Post Office was closed until 8 a.m., we had better make some provision ourselves. It is a mofistrous thing to think that we should have been left to the mercy of the waves. It might, of course, have happened that there was a vessel in Lyttelton to have picked up our urgent call, but this is not of frequent occurrence, and as far as Saturday was concerned, there was no vessel in the harbour ■ready to answer.” Captain Haytor said that he was not so ranch concerned with the prevent had facilities offered by the telegraph authorities as he was with the treatment of bis operator in his first „all, and ho assured the reporter that he intended to get to the bottom of the matter. He thought that it was high time that something was done to maintain an all-night service for cases such as that at present under notice. If this was not done it would he useless for owners to equip installations on their vessels, especially those engaged in the ferry service and coastal traders.