The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1913. THE AMOKURA INQUIRY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8480, 15 July 1913, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 15, 1913. THE AMOKURA INQUIRY

The report of the Secretary of Marine on the inquiry into the allegations concerning the flogging of boys on the training ship Amokura is not calculated to create a very reassuring )nr satisfactory impression on the public mind. If the Amokura were a reformatory ship, and the lads sent there for training were of the criminal class, it might be possible to understand and appreciate the methods that have been pursued. But it is not so. This is lan institution for the training of the sons of respectable parents to the calling of the sea. The boys must necessarily be of good character and tolerably well-behaved or they would not ,be accepted as pupils, while it also igoea without saying that they are drawn from respectable homes. Consequently, if the master is a man of self-control and force of character, it "should not bo any more difficult to 'maintain discipline amongst them than it is amongst the lads in any boarding school in the country. And yet we read of hoys being laid across three hammocks and flogged with a rope one-and-a-half inches in circumference. "We say without hesitation that the effect of such punishment must necessarily be brutalising and degrading in its influences on the whole of the Juvenile ship’s company. Even tho Hon. F. M. B. Fisher, in his somewhat lame defence of these methods, confessed that in one instance the skin on a boy’s leg was broken and some bleeding caused. If this has occurred in one instance of which evidence was forthcoming, what guarantee is there that it has not happened in many other cases of which the investigator had no knowledge ? Nevertheless, the Hon. H. D. Bell, when he was in temporary charge of the department and with the evidence before him, ventured to assure tho public that there had been no undue severity in the punishment. Is flogging with a rope’s end in itself not an unduly severe punishment? We ■unhesitatingly say that it is. Why then should it be inflicted on boys of good character, who have been sent to this vessel for instruction in seamanship, for offences of a comparatively trivial character ? It is all very well to talk platitudes about mawkish sentimentality, and to cite the growing tendency of colonial youth towards insubordination, but if measures of this kind are necessary to maintain discipline on a training ship it would be preferable to abolish the institution altogether. Even if we were prepared to admit a great difficulty in controlling boys of this class, we would still maintain that it is inexpedient and improper to flog them with a rope’s end, when tho more simple and effective method of dismissing them from the ship is at the command of the management. Boys who require to be flogged with a rope’s end have no right in such an institution, where the State pays for their seafaring training, and where the lads are provided with pocket-money ana other privileges. As for the lame and inconclusive argument of the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher that if we abandoned corporal punishment on the Amokura, we might Just as well discontinue it in our public schools, the answer suggests itself that there is no necessity whatever to abandon corporal punishment if it is required. But flogging with a rope’s end is an extreme and undesirable method of corporal punishment, and is not resorted to in tho public schools, so that there is no parallel between the system on the training ship and that in tho schools. It seems to us, after reading the report and the speech of tho Minister of Marino, that the whole system of control is at fault. It is stated in the report that one officer was in the habit of calling the lads “damned boys” and “damned asses,” while Mr Young said that another officer was as good at using bad language as anybody else. These two statements, if they are warranted, appear to us to throw an instructive light on an objectionable system apparently prevailing on the Amokura that ought to be promptly remedied. If the officers of the ship were, or are, accustomed to use bad language to the boys, it is only natural to expect that tho example would bo copied, in which event it would be unreasonable and unfair to make the use of bad language an offence and punish it by flogging with a rope’s end. What measure of discipline or obedience can be looked for, in any case, if there was such lamentable want of control by the superior officers over

their own tongues and tempers? The evidence, so far as it goes, suggests the question whether it is desirable or wise to continue this training ship experiment at all. It is stated that a good many boys, leave the sea after the period of training has expired, which does not speak too well for their experiences on the Araokura, while the best results accomplished apparently are to jirovide shipping companies with recruits for their fleets. Probably it would be much better to leave the training of these lads in the first instance to tho shipping companies. In any case, the advantage accruing to the State after its considerable expenditure of money is very problematical.