THE MERCHANT SERVICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1919, Page 7

THE MERCHANT SERVICE.

rBBITISE SEAMAN ratt> TO HAVE 1 THRASHED SKIPPER.

Respecting the trouble between the Merchant Service Guild in Auckland and the owners of one of the coastal steamera running out of that port over the employment on that vessel of a master who, according to the guild, is not loyal, an officer of the guild stated at Wellington on Friday that it was understood that the master was to be dispensed with.

Aa was stated in the Times several days ago, the principal grievances against the man are those of nationality and an allegedly too free expression ot opinion concerning the qualities of Germans aa opposed to Britons. The matter was brought to the notice of the Government, and it is understood now by the officer above referred to that the Government will support the demand for the dismissal of the master.

However, the position is acute. The position was put this way yesterday by an officer of the guild: "There is one thing certain, and it is that the man will have to go." .

"He is a German," continued the officer, "and appears to consider himself better than British people. All the same, he failed to prove that he was better than a certain Briton the other day, when one of the men tcok to him on account of the wa,y he was talking and 'knocked him out.'" This story comes, by the way, from an Auckland skipper at present in Wellington. The attitude of the guild appears to be expressed by the officer, who said: "It is for the Government to say; but he has to go or the guild will strike." It was stated by Sir James Allen that he had written to the company concerned asking it to remove the captain from the vessel and put him on shore.