THE TAIAROA INQUIRY. Wellington, May 10.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 154, 15 May 1886, Page 3

THE TAIAROA INQUIRY. Wellington, May 10.

The Taiaroa inquiry was resumed at two p m, to-day. Gilbert Button deposed that he was a sailor by profession, and was a steerage passenger in the Taiaroa at the time she •was wrecked. After leaving Wellington he was at intervals on deck, and saw land up to six o'clock. Coming up from below after seven o'clock he saw land ahead on the starboard side. The witness then recounted his getting into the lifeboat, etc., all of which has already been made public. When the boat capsized he swam ashore, landing a mile and a-half, as nepr as he could judge, north of the vu-eck. He had been 26 years at sea. When he went down to tea, he thought the vessel appeared to be on the proper course, When ho saw land at 7 o'clock, it did riot seem too close. Had the order been "Put your helm hard over and full speed astern " when the danger was discovered, she would never have gone ashore. Had a conversation with Williamson, the helmsman, who told the witness the mate had not told him to alter hia helm before he went down to call the captain. Was still positive in the opinion that ifc w ould have been unsafe to have attempted to land. Un the night of the wreck the Taiaroa was flying light, and it must have affected her steering. Alex. Gordon Grant, sergeant in the Torpedo Corps, said he had been sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and had served altogether fourteen years. The boat he was in was tied in the first instance to the ship itself, bat as she was plunging about they cut the line and made fast to the hawser, which was run out from the steamer. The boat had four oars and rowlocks to match with an extra one. The boat had no rudder or steering gear. When he came to the surface after being thrown from the boat be could see neither boat nor anyone else. He struck out for the shore, eventually landing about a mile north of the ship. From what he had seen since he thought it would have been dangerous to have attempted to land from the boats immediately under the lea of the ship. The chief officer told him when ho entered the boat that he thought they were about five miles from Kaikoura. Captain Thomson, recalled, eaidthey bad more than sufficient lifeboats on board, probably about sixty or seventy. They had no ofcher life saving apparatus on board, except lifebuoys. The lifeboats carried on the steamer do not light themselves, bub had airtight tanks. They had on board two Holms's lights, but he did not know it at the time. They were in the chief officer's charge. They were of a kind which floated on the surface of the .water. Mr Bell addressed the Courb on behalf of the Collector of Customs. He urged that, although the captain allowed half a point to westward on accouut of the northwester in the Strait?, yet when the wind changed, and although the Taiaroa was flying light, he did not make any allowance on the other eide. The. gravest charge, however, which he had to make against the captain — in fact the only grave charge -was that, according to his own evidence, he never looked at the compass from the time he left Wellington, certainly never after four o'clock. Be reviewed the evidence on the third point, and argued that if Captain Thomson had done so he must have observed something which would have drawn his attention to the fact that he was too close to the land. Even the deviation of the compass was to eastward, and that would have eet her outside rather than inside Kaikoura. The Court must remember that the helm was put hard a-starboard before the steamer etruck, so that really before that she must have been heading still more in-ehore than her position now shows. After they struck if the captain had looked at the compass he must have discovered he was on the Waipapa point j yet he clearly knew nothing about where he was. This ignorance, though it really did not matter as ifc turned out, might in other circumstances have had a highly important effect on the atter fate of those on board. Against the conduct of the captain subsequently there was nothing to say, but he must urge on the Court that the p imary cause of the wreck was the> master's inattention to the course he .was 1 steering. ' - The Court then adjourned till eleven a.m, n Wednesday,