"Eridan"

Papeete Admires the "Eridan"

But Sydney Does Not

THE Tahiti Chamber of Commerce has asked that the Messageries Mari times liner “Eridan” be kept on the Marseilles-Papeete-Via-Noumea run be cause it is the only vessel “capable of maintaining the prestige of the French flag in the Pacific”.

Tahiti, no doubt, knows about the charges of inferior accommodation which appear in the Australian Press when this and other French ships reach Sydney.

When the “Eridan” arrived in Sydney some months ago, she was described as a “hell-ship”, because of accommodation given migrant passengers who had paid about £100 for a single fare.

The Messageries Maritimes Co. de clared that this was not its fault, as all these passengers had paid their fares through some European tourist agency.

Some English passengers who travelled under these conditions complained bitterly about troopship sleeping arrange ments, bad food, general insanitary con ditions, lack of bathrooms and toilets, and the conduct of some crew members.

Illustrations in the Australian press pre sented a grim picture of what travel in the ship must have been like.

There has never been any complaint about the “Eridan’s” first-class accom modation. But this is not taken into account in Australian ports, where the blast of newspaper publicity has robbed her of any prestige she might enjoy in Papeete or elsewhere.