Official Boycotting.

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 793, 10 March 1894, Page 2

Official Boycotting.

If there is one thing more than another that commends the Huddart Parker intercolonial steamship service to the impartial mind it is the hostile attitude assumed towards it by so many of our public officials. It is difficult to understand why the Mararoa should be any more to them than the Tasmania, but she is, and nine times out of ten, when the opportunity is afforded them, certain Harbour Board and Customs officials make it as warm for the opposition liner in a quiet way as they possibly can. This is not so true of the Auckland officials as it was, and certainly the reproach does not apply to them to the extent that it does to the officials in the South.

Wellington afforded a glaring case in point the other day on the occasion of the arrival of the Taßmania after a stormy passage down the Coast. Two thinga occurred that were anything but creditable to the respective departments concerned. In the firßt place, Captain MoGee, in response to the signals, was bringing his steamship in towards his berth and would have had her alongside in another moment when there was a sudden hallooing and he was compelled to stop. Then, to the astonishment of everyone, the lines of a coal hulk, which was lying in the berth beyond the Tasmania's, were brought along and the hulk was hauled between the Tasmania and the wharf, delaying the berthing of the Bteamer and the landing of her passengers for pretty nearly half-anhour. What a row there would have been if such a thing had been done to a Union steamer by a Huddart Parker or any other hulk. And why in the name of all that is sensible could it not have been done an hour or two hours earlier than it was ? This is a question some member of the Wellington Harbour Board Bhould let light in upon.

Bat the troubles of the Tasmania and her captain and wearied passengers did not end here. The Customs officials had still to be dealt with. Those who have had anything to do with the minions of this exemplary ciroumlocution office will understand their capabilities in the matter of hostile obstructiveness. And they were obstructive, too. It had occurred to the official mind that the Tasmania might be over-crowded, and consequently men were posted at several points to prevent anyone from landing until the names of all the passengers had been taken by an important-looking Customs officer who was guarding the gangway. Could anything more wooden in the way of officialdom be imagined ? There were a couple of hundred passengers just arrived from a boisterous passage, eager to be on terra firma once more and to greet their impatient friends and yet they must submit to this farce. Of course, the officer on the gangway was a fair representative of Customs red-tapei6m. He couldn't manage more than one name a minute, and meanwhile everyone waited in hopeless despair— while the genial McGee locked himself in his cabin and kicked the cat just by way of relieving his feelings.

The whole proceeding was a farce, and one, moreover, that was by no means creditable to the Liberal Government that tolerates such things. Be it remembered that the Mararoa arrived at the same wharf on the previous forenoon, and though she carriej quite two passengers to the Tasmania's one, there was no question of taking tlieir names. Two gangways were run out when she berthed alongside the wharf, and the passengers were all ashore in three minutes. But then she was a Union Company's boat. That explains a great deal. But it would be interesting to know if the Union Company really does control the Customs and Harbour Board staffs of the colony ? and, if not, why is the business of the Union Company facilitated and that of the Huddart Parker Co. retarded ? It seems to us, as suggested by ' Bio ' in his admirable cartoon, that Ministers, public officials and merchants alike prostrate themselves before this modern living fetish.

But to return to the Tasmania. The individual who was taking the names stuck manfully to his post until he found hotel-runners and all kinds of people whose faces he knew surging down the gangway, and then it broke in slowly on his comprehension that while he was blocking the means of exit from the steamer no one was taking the precaution of preventing people from going up the sides, and so the steamer was filling up with venturesome spirits from the shore. Therefore, he gave up his • tally,' and the passengers were soon on the wharf. There was very little reason in the delay. It would have been sufficient at the most to count the passengers, and if this were done to one of the two steamers on this service it certainly should be done to both.