Returning Delegates Satisfied
p. 58 · Read in the full issue
Cook Is. Fruit
Industry
Returning Delegates Satisfied with N.Z. Inquiry
From Our Own Correspondent
Rarotonga, June 14.
DESPITE a slight drizzle an unusually large crowd gathered last evening on the Avarua wharf to greet the returning members of the delegation which submit ted evidence in connection with the Cook Is. fruit industry before the Parliamen tary Committee in Wellington.
First to land from the Maunganui was the party headed by Mr. William Mcßir ney, chairman of the Growers’ Associa tion. Although it is as yet premature to attempt any estimate of the work per formed by these gentlemen it is safe to assume from their general air of satisfac tion that they regard the future with a confident eye.
From those who advocated the forma tion of a Fruit Control Board one gathers that their proposals, and indeed the whole position of local growers, received an un commonly sympathetic hearing from the committee, who were, it appeared, sur prisingly well-informed on conditions generally in the Cook Islands. This almost unprecedented attitude on the part of the Government, coupled to the sincerity of its desire to effect results, created in turn an equally unprecedented feeling of con fidence among the delegates. What, under less auspicious conditions, might have been a battleground for the contend ing interests of middleman and producer developed rather into a conference for the betterment of the latter.
It is also understood that the delegates from the Growers’ Association have made a number of contacts of a business nature which will, they hope, eventually be the means of bringing about a better state of things in connection with the supply of fruit boxes and other subsidiary aspects of the industry.
Local interest is now focussed on the arrival in July of the three committee members detailed by Parliament to inves tigate matters personally in Rarotonga.
With a sympathetic Government in power there has never previously been such an opportunity for growers to lay their troubles before the one quarter from which relief can come. The Labour Party is to be congratulated both on its deter mination to see matters put right and in its choice of such straight-forward methods of setting about doing so.
Were these Islands politically represent ed in New Zealand there is no question to-day for which side the population could be relied upon to vote.
Nurse L. G. McMillan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. W. McMillan, of Suva, Fiji, has been appointed as a nurse in Papua with the London Missionary Society.
Previously she had served on the staff of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.
Dr. D. L. Muir, Assistant Superinten dent at the Auckland Hospital, arrived in Rarotonga recently to put in the winter working with the Cook Islands Medical Officer, Dr, E, P. Ellison. Dr. Muir’s health has been unsatisfactory for some time and it was with the object of escap ing the N.Z. winter that he went north to the Cooks. Specialising in gynecology, he will find plenty to keep him occupied in the Cook Group.