THE MERCHANT MARINE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1059, 25 August 1930, Page 16

THE MERCHANT MARINE

LORD BLEDISLOE’S TRIBUTE MASTER MARINERS MEET Press Association WELLINGTON, Sunday. An impressive tribute to the work of the Merchant Navy was paid by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, who, as patron, was the chief guest at the annual di' S-jr of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners last evening. The president of the company, Sir Charles Statham, Speaker of the House of Representatives, presided. Other guests were the Speaker of the Legislative Council, Sir Walter Carncross; the Minister of Railways, the Hon. W. A. Veitch; the Bishop of Wellington, Dr. T. H. Sprott; and Captain J. S. G. Fraser, chief staff officer of the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy. Lord Bledisloe expressed his appreciation of the cordiality and loyalty shown to him as the representative of the King in New Zealand. He said it was indeed true that there was no more loyal body of men in the British Empire than the masters and officers of the Merchant Marine. After remarking on the “generous and highminded decision to send New Zealand’s representatives to the Imperial Conference with the solid backing of a united nation, and confidence that they would express the people’s will, his Excellency proposed the toast of the Merchant Navy. “ENTERPRISE AND COURAGE” From the earliest days, he said, British mariners had been mainly responsible for the development of their country and empire, which had been largely built up by enterprising and courageous seamen. In recent years, as events had shown, no two countries had depended more for their existence and prosperity on the efficiency of the Merchant Navy thaV Britain and New Zealand. That had been forcibly demonstrated again and again since the days of Captain Cook and those of the great pioneer settlers of the forties and fifties of last-century. Britain had long since ceased to be self-contained in the matter of food supplies, and the war had proved that but for the skill and dauntless courage of the men of the Merchant Navy her people would have starved. Speaking from personal experience as a member of the Ministry of Food Control, from 1916 to 1918, and particularly as the sugar controller, Lord Bledisloe cited faQts which, he said, Had caused “some of us landlubbers to realise what ,the Merchant Navy meant to Britain.” “Since those days,” said his Excellency, “I have realised the enormous dependence of the nation on the skill of the merchant marine, and their calm judgment and selfless courage in the face of emergency.” He remarked on the doughty deeds performed at sea ‘since the time of Noah, the first master mariner,” and made humorous references to the despotic powers that could be wielded by sea captains and “their extraordinary capacity for the retort courteous to nervous landlubbers.”