INVERCARGILL NOTES A SEAMEN'S GRIEVANCE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 280, 11 July 1888, Page 5

INVERCARGILL NOTES A SEAMEN'S GRIEVANCE.

Invercakgill, July 9. A good deal of dissatisfaction is expressed over the recent decision of J.IVs who sentenced several mombers of the crew of the vessel Annie Row to a term of imprisonment for alleged disobedience of oi-ders. The outcome of the agitation is the following memorial to the Governor, which is being largely feigned by business men in town :—": — " We, the undersigned residents of Invercaigill and neighbourhood, beg most respectfully to direct Your Excellency's attention to what, in the opinion of your memoiialists, is a case of hardship, to wit, four seamen, belonging to the barquentine Annie Row, have been recently sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for refusing at sea to proceed on a voyage in the said vessel. The circumstances connected with the refusal of duty, in the opinion of your memorialists, qualified, if they did not absolutely justify, the action of the seamen. The vessel left port with a f \, 11 cargo and a deck load of timber, bound from Bluff to South Australia, and shortly after leaving Bluff encountered very bad weather—the vessel commenced leaking 1 to such an extent that she required to be pumped twenty minutes every hour. The pumps were not in good order ; the deck cargo had to be thrown overboard. Undor the circumstances your memorialists consider that very strong reasons existed for warranting the crow in believing that in proceeding on the voyage they would imperil their lives. Your memorialists would, therefore, earnestly solicit that the clemency of the Crown should interfere to the extent of commuting the sentences passed on the seamen." The pumps have since been repaired, and the vessel left with a new captain and crew.