THE POTATO IS COOKED.

Observer, Volume XXXII, Issue 22, 10 February 1912, Page 3

THE POTATO IS COOKED.

But It Is Not Peeled. IT was Te Whiti, the cherry-col-oured prophet of Parihaka, who first invested the cooked potato with oracular significance, and caused it to be accepted as the signal for war —or was it peace ? The seamen of the Rarawa have gone one better. They have also made the cooked potato the signal for war, but, unlike Te Whiti, they have distinguished between the potato that was peeled and the one that wasn't peeled. Some people might say that this was a distinction without a difference. But Mr Charles Ranson knows better. The fact that the 5.6. Barawa, with her passengers and cargo on board, was compelled to wait some hours while the difference between potatoes peeled and cooked in their skins was discussed, and that the Northern Steamship Company was put to a few pounds expense in consequence, has impressed the circumstance on his mind. • • » The strike on the Rarawa is now a matter of history. It owed its origin to a 'circumstance quite as important as a good many other strikes. The firemen of the steamer were regaled on peeled potatoes for dinner, while potatoes with their skine on were served to the seamen, which naturally caused the seamen to get their backs up and refuse to go to sea. The strike was settled by a compromise. Like Inspector Fuller, in the case of the Wellington tramway strike, the cook who was foolhardy enough to serve unpeeled potatoes to New Zealand seamen was moved elsewhere. He was, in fact, moved to another ship where probably the men are not so epicurean in their tastes. There are some people who might be inclined to argue that the demand of the seamen was a trifling one. We don't think so at all. The New Zealand type of seaman is a tender and delicate, plant, and must be carefully nurtured, if we are to get anything like equivalent of his wages out of him. And, after all, there is some danger attaching to the practice of placing unpeeled potatoes before one of these delicate human plants. Who knows what may happen P One of them, in excessive haste to return to his duties, might swallow a piece of potato ekin, and like the late King Edward, be seized with appendicitis. These lives are too precious. We must not spare the potato knife lest the surgeon, as a consequence, might be required to use his own particular and useful little knife. • .• ■ Perhaps it is as well that attention has been called to this grievance. There are many grievances that coastal seamen suffer in silence, because they are too ehy and modest to draw attention to them, but these also ought to be remedied. For example, why should the seamen be asked to dine by themselves ? Occasionally, their feelings are hurt when they see the officers going to the saloon table, and they are not asked to go also. Hitherto, they have not made a song about this distinction, but it is time something was done to place the seamen on the same footing as the passengers and ■officers. They ought certainly to be on an equality. ■ ■ ■ Then again the officers get a cup of coffee when they go off duty. The •seaman's work is more arduous. Why not supply him with a long beer when his watch has ended ? Why not indeed ? We have been told that long beere are wholesome and acceptable to seamen. Why not supply them with a long beer every time the bell strikes ? In this weather, a thirst often develops between the strikes of the bell, and it is not consistent with the dignity of a New -Zealand seaman, under the"

authority of the Federation of Labour, that he should be expected to resort to the water butt for refreshment. • ■ • There is yet another and a greater grievance. When the steamer gets into port and the seaman proceeds to adorn himself with the object of eallying ashore in quest of his best girl, he is expected, after his arduous labours, to polish his own shoes. Now, what could be simpler and more reasonable than for chief stewards like our Triend Prengley, who have nothing to de between meals except to manicure their finger nails, to usefully occupy themselves shining the shoes of the seamen in preparation for the amorous evening walk ? Really, friends, the New Zealand seaman is not treated as he ought to be. That ie why we throw out these few suggestions to improve things and to prevent the happening of more seamen's 6trikes