Shipwrecked Mariners' Society.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 50, 11 December 1902, Page 18

Shipwrecked Mariners' Society.

We note with approval that a society for the purpose of affording relief in cases of shipwreck has been formed in Dunedin, and that support has been promised from all the other centres. The main object to be trained in thia matter is system. Public sympathy is rery fickle. It pours out money like water when some great disaster inflicts a shock, but it allows isolated sufferers to pine in neglect. There is an apt case, now in point. Among the crew of the Quiraing, lost somewhere between Australia and this Colony, was a man whose wife and family live near Dunedin. There are five children, one of whom was born since the wreck and will never know its father in this world. After considerable delay a public subscription list was opened, and up to date the amount realised is something like £60. This may possibly swell to £100 or even to £150, but th© inadequacy of such a sum to afford permanent relief must be apparent. If there were a fund established, anomalies like this could not arise. The fund might be organised on some such lines as the Coal Mine Accident Fund in New South Wales, whence relief came so promptly and efficiently in the recent Mount Kembla disaster. The contributaries are the mine owners, the miners, and the Government. An analogous system might be arranged here with respect to maritime disasters, and isolated cases would not pass by neglected. In tho aggregate there are more of these than of "Wairarapas and Elingamites, and the sum of human suffering is consequently greater. The subject is one so much calculated to attract public sympathy that support may be reasonably expected from quarters outside merely maritime circles. We therefore look for the prompt establishment of a large endowment fund, yielding enough to meet the demands of all current cases, and the removal of a reproach that has existed too long.