The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1912. SAFETY AT SEA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 270, 11 May 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1912. SAFETY AT SEA.

i The loss of the Titanic has turned the : I eyes of all countries having ships to the question of the safety of passengers and crews in times of disaster at sea. New Zealand is particularly interested in this matter, because of its rugged and dangerous coast, and the fact that its island people necessarily use the sea a great deal. Many modern wrecks have shown that the average steamer-man (as distinct from the sailor-man) is frequently quite lost in an emergency. When it is remembered that some of the great companies are dispensing with every! white seafarer possible and manning their boats with lascars, it follows that seamanship must die out, that in emergency passengers will have one chance in ten of being saved, and that the mechanical aids of life-saving will be ineffective if unsuitably manned. It is likely that the crews in the New Zealand coastal trade are much more expert in the handling of boats than the majority of men doing the Atlantic trip, but there have been evidences before to-day of inefficiency. Inefficiency means that passengers and crew have little chance of being saved. In our view, the Sailors' and Firemen's Union, which has threatened a strike if the P. and 0. steamers do not detail two efficient white seamen to each boat, are in the right. It has been found impossible to get lascar seamen to forget themselves during wreck times, and, as a matter of fact, they usually huddle together like sheep and must be driven to work, if any white person is at hand to do the driving. The lascar element is, of course, not present in the coastal trade, but hundreds of these dark gentry are coming to New Zealand in big ships, and in case of a wreck on our coasts the passengers would have to largely depend on these independable Asiatics. There is, however, as much need for a revolution in life-saving gear' and methods in New Zealand as there is elsewhere. As we have before remarked, a wreck always brings our deficiencies and delinquencies prominently to mind, but soon after each wreck shipping authorities relapse into carelessness. We make bold to say that not one out of each dozen passengers on the New Zealand coast has ever seen the crews at' boat drill. There is apparently no stated period for training all or any of a ship's company in rescue work; large numbers of men have been called upon to lower boats or to pull them, and only a man here and there knows the first thing about a boat. If the Minister of Marine ordered all shipping to fully load and lower its boats in a seaway, or under

any conditions approximating to those I that might be experienced in time of trouble, it might be found that there 1 were insufficient boats, insufficient trained men to handle them, rotten tackle, and shortage of provisions. And yet it is absolutely necessary in the interest of (lie great travelling public that these things should be periodically attended to and that efficiency should be insisted on in every ship that carries human beings. In a certain famous New Zealand wreck it was shown in evidence that the only man aboard who could handle a boat efficiently was an engineer who had been reared on the New Zealand fcoast and had not forgotten the training of his boyhood. If there were lack of efficiency on a particularly busy coastal steamer it is likely that inefficiency on other coastal steamers is equally glaring. On every New Zealand coastal steamer the "wreck and fire" stations of the crew are set down in accordance with the law. This is of no earthly use if crews are inefficient when wanted—and there is no doubt that lack of efficiency is very pronounced. New Zealand ships should not only be supplied with their full complement of lifeboats, but the Marine Department should insist that every one of those boats when loaded should have a reasonable chance of being properly handled in time of trouble. On New j Zealand coasts we have necessarily very - fine mariners, but either from carelessness or negligence shipowners do not insist that they shall be as efficient in boats as on board steamers. It is a matter of tremendous importance to the travelling public, and it is certainly equally important to the crews on whom the safety of all hands depend.