SURVEY SHIP

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20820, 2 June 1939, Page 2

SURVEY SHIP

H.M.B. ENDEAVOUR IN PORT MEN GIVE GROUNDS OF COMPLAINT (By Telegraph.—Press Association) AUCKLAND, Friday ff.M.S. Endeavour, which is engaged hi survey work on the New Zealand coast, arrived in port yesterday. An Inquiry into conditions on the ship will be conducted by the naval authorities. Complaints have been rife for some time past, and questions have been asked in the House of Commons concerning the inordinate number of desertions. The inquiry was ordered by the Admiralty. Although a proportion of the men express themselves satisfied with the conditions and are prepared to take the bitter with the sweet, there is no doubt that dissatisfaction is prevalent among a section who submit the following grounds of complaint:— (i) The fact that 132 officers and men were crowded into a ship of such small size; (2) the fact that since she ■was a coal-burning ship the duties of stokers were much more unpleasant than in oil-burning vessels; and (3) the long periods spent at sea in all sorts of weathers and the neverending nature of their task compared badly enough with work in a warship to warrant, in the demands on the crew, some relaxations which did not Impair efficiency.