NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume VII, Issue 3, 1 December 1902, Page 255

NEW ZEALAND.

The disastrous wreck of the " Elingamite " at the Three Kings, on its voyage from Sydney, with its results of. great sufferings and deplorable loss of life, must cause every one who has the slightest feeling for the welfare of his fellow man to exclaim against the criminal carelessness which admits of boats and rafts not being kept always properly provisioned for use, and provided with compasses, which could easily be fitted into the woodwork. The extreme difficulty experienced in launching the boats shows also that boat-drill should be made not only imperative, but efficient. Not the make-shift sort of drill, which is occasionally, but very occasionally, indulged in, where tlie men are merely called from their bunks to their several posts, made to handle the falls, and then allowed to go back again. That is next to useless. The boats must be properly launched. It has been objected that this takes time ; but what is time compared to human life, and the awful sufferings of which we have recently read with horror. A systematic overhauling of life-belts, to see that all fastenings and appliances are in perfect order would, one would imagine, be regularly made ; but from the difficulty many experienced in fixing them on, and the complaints one heard it would seem that even this very simple precaution was not attended to. A simpler form of fixing could easily be designed instead of the one used at present that requires the printed instructions placed in cabins,

which there is rarely time to read if one has not done so beforehand. This wreck should be a sufficient lesson to those in authority to see to these simple matters on which so much depends ; but they certainly should not have required this lesson. It has cost too much to teach. The imperative necessity of a foghorn on the Three Kings will, doubtless, impress itself on the public mind, and it is fervently hoped that they will not rest till they get it.