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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2594, 14 July 1881, Page 2

The u Sydney Morning Herald ” is wroth at the New Zealand Government quarantining all vessels from Port Jackson, Our contemporary alludes to the Charles Worsley, the English ship, which brought the epidemic to Port Chalmers a few days ago, and expresses an opinion that if the Government acted impartially it would also quarantine all vessels from London. The Sydney journal must be “ wandering.” The average passage of sailing vessels from Home occupies ninety days, and it is only by sailing ships .that we have direct communication with London. The Union Company’s steamers run over from Sydney in six days. In the case of the English ship there are “ oceans ” of time for the disease to develop itself. A passage of thirteen thousand miles should satisfy the most timorous that the seeds of the disease does not lurk amongst the passengers or crew, else small-pox would have shown itself on board. In the latter case, an English ship would be quarantined. But as regards vessels from Sydney, it is indispensably necessary that they should be quarantined. Six days’ passage is not a sufficient test of a ship being'clean. Considerable inconvenience no doubt is caused, by qua rantining the steamers and there is a disarrangement of trade. But it should be borne in mind by the Sydneyites that New Zealand suffers equally with New South Wales by the inconvenience and disarrangement. We suppose the “ Sydney Morning Herald ” does not like the idea of the stately and progressive city on the shores of Port Jackson, beang proclaimed an “ infected place within the meaning of the Act,” The following are the remarks of our New South Wales contemporary : “We quarantine clean ships from China, which country sends produce to the value of only half a million per annum—and that mostly tea—and leave ships from London, where there are now 1600 smallpox patients in hospital, free to land their thousands of passengers and seven millions worth of produce annually, without quarantine, provided there be no disease on board. The cases in New Zealand must tend to force this question upon the notice of Australian Governments. Our neighbors lost no . time in placing Sydney in quarantine, and vessels have, been going to Newcastle and returning with coal or in ballast, lest the New Zealand authorities should quarantine them for having visited Sydney. Are the New South Wales authorities to declare * New Zealand por ts “ infected places,” and quarantine e very ship from thence, whether clean or unclean? And what will be done vrith the ships from London ? The Colonies are all in the same boat, ancT instead of merely

placing each other in quarantine by proclamations, they should take united action to meet the common danger ; not by placing an embargo on all imports and immigration, but by vigorous attention to cleanliness, and by the adoption of all reasonable and practicable precautions.” Of course, it is quite within the power of the New South Wales authorities to declare all New Zealand ports infected places because there is an English ship in quarantine at Port Chalmers, but it would be an exceedingly foolish step. If the smallpox in Sydney had been confined to the quarantine ground, not a ship from New South Wales would suffer detention here. A most deadly and contagious disease is loose in a populous capital of a neighboring colony, and it would be nothing short of madness for the authorities of New Zealand not to take the most effective means to prevent it reaching these shores.