Why Should Not Matson Liners

Pause at Apia?

A SECOND disaster on the Apia-Pago Pago run, within three years, should compel the New Zealand authori ties in Western Samoa to do something about it.

One of the major miseries, in this part of the Pacific, is that 65-miles voyage between Apia and Pago Pago, which has

Crippled after striking a reef near the entrance to Pago Pago, the “Tutuila” was cast by the pounding surf on to the beach at Yailotai.

to be made in a small boat to connect with a Matson liner at Pago. Yet the same liner, on her regular track between Pago Pago and Suva, passes practically within sight of Apia. Surely, if people are prepared to pay for this miserable small-boat voyage between Pago and Apia, and the authorities are prepared also to pay for the transport of mails to catch the mail-steamer, they would be prepared to pay no less for the privilege of boarding or leaving the Matson liner at Apia, and thus cutting out the mis eries and dangers of the small boat voyage.

What are the objections to it? Anxiety by the British Administration to pre serve British trade for British shipping lines?

If the latter is the case, then the situation is ridiculous. Everyone who possibly can will wait at Apia for trans port by the modern “Matua”; but. obvi ously, the service provided by the “Matua" is not sufficient for the require ments of Western Samoa, and hence we have the regular running of small ves sels between Apia and Pago Pago to connect with the Matson liners.

A call by the Matson liners at Apia, if only for an hour or two, to pick up and set down waiting- passengers and mail, should surely be a simple matter of arrangement.

The present farce, with its hideous discomfort and its very real element of danger, has been going on far too long.