"Tagua" Brings News Of
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
Sunday Is.
NEWS of many places and people m Polynesia was given to me in Suva in July, when the auxiliary schooner “Tagua,” 205 tons, Captain Matheson, came into port.
Captain Matheson runs his trim and handy craft, in these days, in the service of the New Zealand Government, and he goes wherever his transportation services are needed—Samoa, Tonga, Fanning Island, Campbell Island, the Kermadecs, Rarotonga—it is all the same to him.
Mrs. Matheson, who often deserts her home in NZ for a South Seas cruise, was with him on this trip. There is a small, efficient crew. It includes four members of the well-known Marsters family, of Palmerston Island.
Captain Matheson had been recently at Sunday Island (Kermadecs Group, between Auckland and Tonga) where a good deal of developmental work has been done in these war years by the NZ Government. Facilities for working ships are now provided on two sides of the island, so that one side usually can be worked, no matter where the prevail ing bad weather comes from. Sunday Island is famous for the quality of its oranges, and much has been done in propagati<| suitable orange trees.
It will be found, when wartime restric tions are past, that Sunday Island, with its fertile land, genial climate and hot springs, is capable of settlement. The difficulty of maintaining shipping com munications killed all previous attempts.