Sydney-Frisco Line to Cease

Tahiti Connection By French Lines Through Noumea

WITHIN a few weeks the old-estab lished shipping line, carried on by Union Company vessels between Sydney and San Francisco, via Wellington, Raro tonga, and Papeete, will have disappeared.

The two vessels which have been carrying on the service, the Makura and the Mann ganui, are now on their last trips.

The Maunganui left the service when she arrived in Sydney on November 14 and, until February next, she will be engaged in the trans-Tasman service.

The Makura will terminate a quarter of a century’s service for the Union Steam Ship Co. when she arrives in Sydney in December. She will go to New Zealand and then will be delivered to a Chinese company which has purchased her. She will leave for Shanghai early in January.

The Union Co. said that the Makura has steamed for more than 2,300,000 miles in the Pacific, which is probably a British, if not a world steamship record.

With the withdrawal of this line there is no longer a direct passenger service be tween Australia and Tahiti. It will be pos sible, however, for persons desiring to take this trip to travel to Tahiti under com fortable conditions by Messageries Mari times vessels.

Four large modern M.M. liners carry on a six-weekly service between Marseilles, Panama, Tahiti. Vila, and Noumea. It was thought, when the Union line was withdrawn, that the French line might be extended from Noumea to Sydney, but that evidently is not possible.

The Messageries Maritimes Company, however, have introduced into the Noumea- Sydney service, to run every five or six week, a new vessel, the Pierre Loti, which has very good accommodation and which recently was in the Mediterranean service.

She will connect at Noumea with the four liners from Marseilles —the Eridan, Com missaire Ramcl, Ville de Strasbourg, and Ville d’Amiens.

While French currency remained on the gold standard. Australians could not con template travelling by the French line to Papeete, but now all that is changed. The first-class return voyage from Sydney to Tahiti, via New. Caledonia and the South Pacific Islands, will cost £B7, and there is likelihood of a reduction in that price.

The French liners between Tahiti and Noumea call at Fiji for oil fuel but, owing to the heavy port dues at Suva, they do not pick up passengers. If they did, a very attractive trip would be offered to Pacific travellers wishing to visit Eastern Polynesia namely, Sydney, Auckland, Suva, and Tahiti.

There will be no direct connection, now, between Rarotonga and Tahiti. The Cook Islands communication with the outside world will now be supplied by' the new Union motorship Matua.

The Union Steam Ship Company will run freighters regularly between Australia and Tahiti.

Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Wauchope, of Awar Plantation, Madang, arrived in Sydney from New Guinea by the Nellore on Nov ember 19. After a short holiday in Aus tralia they will depart for Europe.

Mr. Claude Barnes, Chief Clerk in the Kavieng Government Station, New Guinea, arrived in Brisbane by the Macdhui early in November to spend a few months’ holiday.