Still No Timber From

Vanikoro

Prom a Special Correspondent THE Kauri Timber Company of Vani koro, which has been out of produc tion since 1942, is now awaiting a shipment of tractors from the United States in order to resume operations.

The dollar position has held up their importation, but the company to whom timber cutting rights have been leased, is prepared to wait, rather than carry on under the outdated hauling system used prior to the war.

Although the world is hungry for it, no timber has been brought out from Vanikoro since 1942, when two million feet were awaiting shipment. No ship was available and that vast quanitity sub sequently rotted and was lost.

Although Vanikoro is part of the Santa Cruz Group, which is included in the British Solomon Islands, it has more of an affinity with the New Hebrides. In normal times the island was visited by Burns Philp ships, as an extension of their Australia-New Hebrides service, about three times per year. At present there is only one steamer about every nine months.

Vanikoro timber is worked by a Mel bourne company and, as such, it might be imagined that it would be to the Aus tralian Government’s advantage to give them every facility, both in shipping and in procuring equipment, for the produc tion of their valuable kauri. However, as Vanikoro belongs to the British Solomons and is a sort of no-man’s-land, no doubt it is regarded, governmentally, as no one’s business.

The Rev. Wesley Lutton, a new recruit of the Methodist Mission, will leave for New Guinea in November.