THE COOK STRAIT SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18199, 21 March 1921, Page 4

THE COOK STRAIT SERVICE.

The partial interruption of the ferry service across Cook Strait, consequent upon the action of a portion of the crew on the steamer Wahine, is necessarily a matter of concern to the public. Hundreds of people throughout the dominion have come to depend upon the maintenance of a daily service each way between Wellington and Lyttelton, and the business community in both islands is, like the travelling public, put to serious inconvenience by a dislocation of the service such as occurred last week. The advantages of the service are appreciated so highly that even a temporary dislocation of the running of the two steamers that are engaged in it is productive of a great deal of irritation and of not a little individual loss. The irritation is intensified when the cause of the interruption in the service is trivial as it seems to be in this case. The precise nature of the grievance which is being harboured by the firemen on the Wahine, who are apparently a rather exacting body of men, may not have been fully disclosed. To the extent to which they have been made public, their complaints are of a character that cannot be held to im-

press the community very powerfully. It has been suggested that to ensure the permanence of the ferry service, employment on the steamers that perform the service should be de-casualised. It is not to be supposed that it is in the interests of the Union Steam Ship Company any more than it is in those of the dominion as a whole that the terms of the engagement of the crews should be such as to expose the company to the danger that one or both of the steamers may be thrown temporarily out of commission through the firemen leaving their work upon the short notice which is all that is required under existing conditions. Nor will it be readily believed that the company has not already given its consideration to the possibility of preventing irritating interruptions in the running of the steamers by the adoption of some plan that would, dr might, provide it and the public with safeguards of the permanence of the service. A dislocation of the service, it is to be remembered, involves the Union Company itself in a serious loss. This being so, it may confidently be assumed that it will bo prepared to adopt any reasonable proposals that would have the effect of eliminating the risk of dislocations of the service.