Cook Is. Notes

Communication With Puka Puka

From Our Own Correspondent

Rarotonga, Jan. 27.

*TPHE inter-island trading-schooner * Tagua pulled out on January 10, bound, via Aitutaki and Puka Puka, for the Northern Group. She will remain at Penrhyn until the end of the hurricane season, Puka Puka, although territorially in cluded in the Cook Islands, has of late years become somewhat of an unwanted orphan, commercially adopted by the Samoan branch of Burns Philp (S.S.) and Co. Prior to the present depression the atoll’s needs were supplied by Messrs A. B. Donald, whose resident trader, Dean Frisby, may be said to have put the island on the map by the well-deserved publicity given to his Book of Puka Puka.

The current visit of the Tagua re-opens a direct communication with Rarotonga, closed for over six years, but which will, one presumes, now be resumed, since it is the intention of the C.I.T.C. to station a resident trader on the island.

Lying 800 miles N.W. of here Puka Puka cannot be regarded as a trader s gold mine. On an average the annual copra output seldom exceeds 90 tons, and beyond this nothing marketable is pro duced by the islanders. (Cook Islanders may find that Puka Puka has a new and hitherto unsuspec

ted value. It is almost on the air-line between Hawaii and American Samoa.

See article in this issue.—Ed., P.1.M.)

Losses On Fruit

Shippers had good cause for dissatis faction with the condition of their fruit on its arrival at Auckland last month at the conclusion of the Matua’s first round-trip embracing Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji. Whether the fault lay with the refrigerating gear or was due simply to ignorance, remains to be seen, although a repetition of last month’s fiasco may well discourage buyers from further speculative ventures and reduce ship ments to consigned fruit only.

N.Z. market prices realised for bananas averaged 5/- a case and, since in several instances, more than this had already been paid out locally to growers, agents were not only faced with a loss on their purchase of the actual fruit, but were also called upon to meet freight and other incidental charges involved.

Fruit Marketing

The Rarotonga Growers’ Association, formed last May for the purpose of weld ing together those who advocated a Fruit Control Board, has recently be come more and more definitely a fruit marketing organisation. The latest de velopment is a suggestion to register the Association as a limited liability com pany with a nominal share capital of £2,500.

A number of meetings have already been held with the object of testing mem bers’ opinion. This is by no means unani

mously in favour of the proposal, it being felt that in so small a community a third native company would be super flous. Others again point out that the Association, on its present basis, func tions quite adequately as a marketing concern for members’ fruit, and that it would be as well to leave other forms of trading severely alone. A further section sees the whole scheme purely as a man oeuvre to create salaried positions for certain individuals connected with the Association.