CO129-328 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [1-6] — Page 778

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maintenance until they obtained further employment or left

the Colony. To this the men declined to agree and they were

within their rights in insisting on full payments being

made to them personally as a condition to accepting their

discharge before it became due under their agreements. The

difficulty was got over by my assenting as reported to you

in my telegram of the 15th. December to the crew being

discharged on the owners' guarantee of the cost of the

men's repatriation if they became distressed seamen. As

stated in my Despatch of the 27th. December, I think I was

in error in giving this assent without a further stipula-

-tion to provide for the maintenance of the men in the

Sailors' Home until repatriated. Had I known at the time,

what I learn from the Board of Trade's letter of the 29th.

April, of which a copy was transmitted in your Despatch

under reply, that there was no power to require passages

as distressed seamen for these men except to a port in

England and that it was doubtful whether the subsequent

expenses of conveying them from England to Italy could be

recovered from the owners of the "Inkula" I do not think I

should have given my consent to the arrangement proposed

by those owners. In that event the men would not have

assented to being discharged here and the ship would have

had