Sydney-Suva-

Vavau New Steamer Service

A SHIPPING development of very considerable interest to the Cen tral Pacific will take effect shortly, when the Union S.S. Co. Ltd., acting in co-operation with Messrs. W. R.

Carpenter & Co. Ltd., will despatch the Union Company’s vessel Hauraki, on the following itinerary: Sydney, Suva, Rotuma, Vavau, Sydney, with possible calls, if required, at intermediate ports.

Messrs. W. R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd., who have business affiliations in the ports mentioned and who are steadily extending their operations, have prom ised the Union Company a definite amount of business, and, as a result, the Union Company has undertaken that this or another vessel will main tain this itinerary on a regular schedule.

It is intended that the service shall be maintained by a vessel capable of carrying passengers, and this is im portant as, since the Matson liners were diverted to include Auckland, there is no direct communication be tween Sydney and Suva.

The development is also important from a purely Australian point of view, because a good deal of the ordinary trade of Fiji and Tonga has been di verted to New Zealand in recent years; and Messrs. Carpenter & Company’s interest in the new venture represents an attempt to make use of the Austral ian exchange position in an effort to recover some of the lost trade for Aus tralia.

The service may also prove to be specially useful to Tonga, in view of the withdrawal of the Tofua from the Fiji-Tonga-Samoa service, to which reference is made elsewhere.