“Makura” Unable To Carry

Benzine.

One Sydney merchant reported to the newspapers that he received, by radio from Tahiti, urgent requests that benzine should be shipped by the Union S.S. Com pany’s liner Makura, which was scheduled to sail from Sydney for Papeete about July 5. But he was refused permission to ship benzine on the Makura, because she was a British ship, and, according to British Board of Trade regulations, was not permitted to carry benzine out of Australian or New Zealand ports. Yet the same vessel, on many occasions, has un loaded hundreds of cases of benzine from San Francisco at Papeete.

The shortage of necessary commodities was the more acutely felt in Tahiti be cause July 14 (France’s National Day) is always celebrated there with colourful festivities, lasting for a week, and thous ands of Europeans and Polynesians crowd into Papeete from all the adjoining islands.