From Sydney

Senibua Returns to Fiji From Sydney Future of SS Marine Products Unknown

THE Fiji tuna clipper Senibua, owned by South Sea Marine Products of Fiji, left Sydney for Suva in mid-March and according to the firm that acted as their agents in Australia, they will not be back.

Senibua went to Sydney about six months ago when it was found that tuna fishing in Fiji waters was not likely to be a commercial success. After much trouble with NSW local authorities, who took the attitude that foreigners were trying to steal their fishing industry, the company was given permission to make a survey of tuna fishing possibilities off the NSW south coast. In the beginning, it appeared that Australian tuna were as hardi to catch as the Fiji variety but around the beginning of this year some good catches were recorded.

In spite of this- success, however, the American principals of Marine Products evidently do not think there is sufficient justification to set up a new enterprise in

Nsw.

It is reported that several members of the crew of Senibua were anxious to buy the clipper to go into business on their own account but that they could not get the necessary financial aid from the Com monwealth Bank of Australia which is limiting all credit as an anti-inflationary measure. rE future of South Sea Marine Products in Fiji is unknown. Mr.

Harold Gatty who did most of the preliminary organising of the company and its associate, Island Packers Inc., re tired from the post of chairman and managing-director last July. Mr. Gatty became interested in the possibilities of a tuna fishing industry in Fiji right after the war and after exhaustive research it seemed that all the conditions were there in the Colony’s waters for the establish ment of a great dollar-spinning industry.

The companies that were formed to fish for tuna in Fiji waters and to can it in American Samoa had the backing of wealthy American interests and tuna clippers and equipment sent to the Colony were of the best available American type.

But for some reason the tuna in Fiji— although there in sufficient quantities— would not respond to the fishing methods employed in the United States. Other methods were tried, but also without success. Late in 1950, the Senibua was sent to NSW to see if prospects were any better there.

The survey made by the clipper in Australian waters seems to have proved that tuna in payable quantities can be caught off the eastern coast of the con tinent, by American pole-fishing methods.

But evidently other factors—perhaps the provisions insisted upon by the NSW Government—have weighed against the company deciding to go into business there.

The French gunboat Tiare recently took the New Caledonian Governor on a visit to the areas on the East coast devastated and isolated by the cyclone.