QUARANTINED LINER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 905, 24 February 1930, Page 8

QUARANTINED LINER

SELDOM are the orderly schedules of large mail steamers disjointed nowadays by the enforcement of quarantine regulations, hut when the time comes, those regulations must be applied with the utmost thoroughness. The Auckland doctors and health officers concerned in the quarantining of the Aorangi are to be commended for their wisdom and firmness. Such decisions are often the target of considerable criticism. The precautions taken are sometimes regarded more as an abstract form than as a vital necessity. There is, too, a good deal of inconvenience occasioned, not only to the passengers, who of course have to suffer most of all, but’ also to consignees of delayed cargo, to prospective travellers. to hotels that have prepared for an influx of guests, and to private citizens-who for one reason or another may be interested in the steamer’s arrival. But, unfortunate though all these issues are, they may not interfere with the wise precautions adopted for the preservation of the public health. Attention had been already focused on smallpox, to a minor extent, by the detention of passengers from the liner Naldera, arriving at Australian ports from Britain. In this case the unfortunate victim of the .outbreak died. The case on the Aorangi is not, according to the medical view, so serious. It is officially diagnosed as a mild case, and now that adequate precautions have been taken there is no need for alarm about its appearance. Smallpox is one of the formerly-dreaded infections which modern medical science and proper methods of vaccination and isolation have practically conquered. The position of the Aorangi’s New Zealand passengers, who will now he compelled to put iu three weeks on Motuihi Island, until the period of possible infection has passed, will not be envied. The Health authorities give the assurance that the facilities at the quarantine station are sufficient to accommodate them in comfort, but it may be taken for granted that the department’s idea of comfort will not necessarily coincide with that of the passengers. Some of the detained travellers may be able to enjoy their stay at Motuihi, making the best of the enforced idleness,’ and perhaps cultivating a fashionable coat of sunburn on the island’s beautiful beaches; but the majority will find their detention inconvenient and irksome. The occasion incidentally serves to emphasise the anomalous character of the arrangement by which Motuihi was recently given to the City as a park. A part-time park and quarantine depot is not a very satisfactory fulfilment of the promises made when the transfer was first offered, •