WELLINGTON GOSSIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 November 1915, Page 3

WELLINGTON GOSSIP.

TROUBLE IN SHIPPING CIRCLES. SHORTAGE OF FIREMEN. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, Nov. 10. If there is trouble in the shipping service in the near future it will not be for want of confident predictions on the part of persons who ought to be averting a quarrel instead of inviting it. One hears every day in shipping circles, and in other circles too, that the firemen and seamen are going to bring about a disastrous strike, and that they are unreasonable men with whom argument is useless. Yet, really, it is nol easy to see that the men, taken as a body, are being particularly unreasonable. The difficulty is that there are not enough of them. The secretary of the Seamen's Union states that of the 3500 members of his union, 1000 have enlisted in New Zealand and some others in Australia. The vancancies cannot be filled from the ranks of casual labor, because a certain amount of skill and experience is necessary. Consequently there is an actual sliorzagn and the shipping companies sullc-r as the public suffers when there is a shortage of flour or some other commodity—they have to pay more or take less. The people who intist that the fireman is animated by sheer "cusscdness" should have been on the wharf the other evening and seen what actually occurred in connection with the departure of a ferry steamer. When the hour for departure arrived the boat lacked one fireman to make un the full complement and so could not proceed. Anxious passengers looked over the side while the ship's officers consulted the secretary of the Seamen's Union. The secretary protested his desire to assist, but said there was not another fireman on the wharf. Then his eye fell on a fireman, wearing shore-going clothes, who had come to the wharf, apparently to see the ferry boat start. Would Mr. Fireman make the trip? Mr. Fireman said, quite politely, that he would not. lie had arranged to stay at home with his wife and his wife was waiting for him further up the wharf. He had no working clothes with him, and he wanted a rest after a busy fortnight. Passengers who had been watching the negotiations made appeals, financial and otherwise, but Mr. Fireman was firm. Then the union secretary made the appeal a personal one. People were going to the races, public men were aboard, and so on. Surely Mr. Fireman would not refuse to oblige when . his refusal might prevent the steamer getting away at all. And Mr. Fireman, obviously reluctant, yielded to persuasion and went aboard, shouting a direction to a friend to take the news to "the missus,'' The point of the story is that there was an actual shortage of firemen. If the people who are talking of strike would recognise that fact we might hear fewer rumors of a dangerous kind. It is perilous to keep telling the fireman that he is expected to make trouble.

THE TOURIST SEASON. ATTRACTIONS AT ROTORUA AND MT. COOK. The tourist sea&on has opened, but it is impossible yet to say what measure of success is going to attend it. The war is bound to reduce the number of visitors from Britain and the other countries of Europe, but it may direct towards this country some part of the stream of tourist traffic that normally goes to Europe from the United States. Australian holiday-makers, too, are likely to come in this direction. The Australians are realising already that they will have to send some of their invalided soldiers to New Zealand to regain their health and strength in a bracing climate.

Apparently Kotorua is going to be specially attractive this season. A period of marked thermal activity has begun and the giant geyser Waimangu has been making some wonderful displays. A new crater has been blown out at the northern end of the Frying Pan and now forms part of the great boiling pool there. Much black sand has been thrown over part of the Frying Pan and several sand jets are playing, while at one point there is a furious boil up four to ten feet high. The activity may decline, of course, but there is ground for hoping that it will be maintained for the next few months.

Some people have got an impression that the whole of the accommodation at Rotorua is going to be used by the invalided soldiers this year. This point was mentioned yesterday to the Gclieral Manager of the Tourist Department (Mr. B. M. Wilson), who assured a New Zealand Times reporter that there was no justification for such a belief The soldiers who are going to Rotorua for treatment are being accommodated in a special camp, and though tliey will use the bath houses and the sanatorium to a certain extent they will not prevent all facilities being at the disposal of ordinary tourists. Indeed the presence of a considerable body of the convalescent soldiers is likely to prove an additional attraction.

A few days ago Mr. Wilson was present at the opening of the ski anil toboggan season at Mt. Cook. The snow and ice sports that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to Switzerland in nor ; mal years are well acclimatised in New Zealand now, though probably they do not number one devotee .for every hundred they will possess a decade hence. The people of ibis country have been very slow to realise that in the district within reach of Jit. Cook Hermitage they have a ski-ing field second, probably, to none in the world. But tliey are learning, and those who go to lit. Cook prepared to scoff remain to ski and fall and ski again. There is no sport quite like it.