Remarkable Shrinkage Of
p. 44 · Read in the full issue
Trade And Shipping
Withdrawal of “Waipahi” Marks End of Auckland’s Once Great Islands Traffic.
THE steamer communication between Australian and New Zealand ports and the Central Pacific, becomes worse and worse.
Before the war, the Union Company and other enterprising concerns supplied excellent and regular liners, which criss-crossed the Central Pacific in all directions, and kept the leading ports of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, and Tahiti in direct and frequent communi cation with the chief ports of Australia and New Zealand. The services seemed all to pay satisfactorily.
After the war, they were considerably restricted; yet, up to the commencement of the depression, one could get about among the groups and territories re ferred to.
Since 1930, however, one service after
another has been discontinued. The “Moeraki,” running out of Sydney to Noumea, Fiji and Tonga, was with drawn; the “Tofua,” keeping up a ser vice between Auckland, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, was replaced by the “Waipahi,” a comfortless car go-carrier; and now the “Waipahi” has been laid up.
The only regular communication now remaining between Auckland (once the centre of an enormous shipping and merchandising traffic with the Islands) and the Central Pacific, is that supplied by the trans-Paciflc mail steamers, which call only at Suva and Pago Pago.
The N.Z. Government put on a vessel, “Maui Pomare,” to maintain communi cation between Samoa, Nuie, and the Dominion; and this service, which rep resents a heavy annual loss, is all that remains of the once great Islands fleet.
The “Maui Pomare,” some time since, cut Auckland out of her itinerary, and runs direct to Wellington.
The shipping companies are not blameworthy. Idle ships are of no use to them. They will run their steamers so long as there are cargo and passen gers to pay half the fuel bill. The fact is that more than half of the Islands trade has simply curled up and disap peared.
There is no doubt that the conomic pendulum will swing again— some time and trade will recover, and the Islands shipping services will be resumed. But, in the meantime, the position is very stlange. The European population to day is far larger, and the native popula tion much more Europeanised, than was the case 20 years ago; yet, in 1912, the Central Pacific trade and traffic were enormously greater than at present.