WRONGS OF SEAMEN. Some Legislation Necessary.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 4, 28 July 1900, Page 6

WRONGS OF SEAMEN. Some Legislation Necessary.

IT is remarkable that amongst the mass of new legislation already • before Parliament this session there is not one measure to relieve the seaman who comes as a stranger to our shores from the tyrannous and even barbarous conditions under which he is sent to gaol at our ports for the most trivial offences on board ship. All the privileges and advantages of our labour laws appear to be for the man who is employed in manufacturing industries ashore, or engaged in the coastal shipping service afloat. We seem to have neither sentiment nor consideration to waste' upon the poor wretches who are sent to gaol in batches from ocean - going vessels, because they find fault with improper and unwholesome food, or refuse to set sail in a leaky, unseaworthy coffin of a ship. • • * Almost every day, instances are happening at our principal ports of sailors being cruelly punished for exercising the common right of remonstrance against palpable wrong and injustice. Why should this be so ? The foreign -going sailors' health, comfort, and even life ought to be as grave a consideration to us as the health, life, or comfort of our own coastal seamen. And, even if we cannot improve or liberalise the articles under which these men have shipped at foreign ports, we can, at least, take precious good care that our own criminal law is not strained to punish these sailors for making legitimate and reasonable representation of their grievances to the masters of their ships. At the present time, the criminal law is grossly abused in this way. * * * A mild case in point was reported in the Wellington daily press only the other day. Some men on the s.s. Paparoa refused duty, alleging that their food was coarse and insufficient, and it is reported that when the case came before the Stipendiary Magistrate he declared, after inspection, that the food was not what it ought to have been. But mark what followed. Seeing that the men had proved their complaint, it would naturally be supposed that the charge would have been dismissed, and the captain directed to provide satisfactory food. But this is precisely what did not happen. On the contrary, the men were ordered to forfeit two days' pay, and return to their ship. And, in view of some other

judgments that have been given under similar circumstances in the colony, the wonder is that the sentence was not two months with hard labour and the forfeiture of accumulated pay. This is the too common experience of seamen who remonstrate against their food or accommodation on board ship, and who protest against putting to sea in an unseaworthy vessel.