Large Timber

Consignment For Lautoka

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Lautoka, Sept. 25.

Fthe course of four or five days in September, over a million super feet of Oregon lumber was discharged from the Lakemba at the CSR wharf at Lautoka, Fiji.

About three times that amount had already been discharged at Suva in a similar time.

According to Lakemba’s skipper, this job of unloading in the two Fiji ports—nine or 10 days in all— would take Sydney wharfies about three weeks to perform. That is a pretty good testimonial to the industry of Fiji wharf labourers, as they have only the minimum of labour-saving equipment.

Need For New Wharf

UNLOADING at Lautoka would be much faster if the wharf were bigger. At present only two hatches of a ship the size of Lakemba can be unloaded onto the wharf. Other hatches are worked onto lighters or, in the case of the lumber, is dumped overboard into the sea and pulled ashore in the form of large rafts.

However, the * most important reason why Lautoka wants a new wharf is that under the existing set-up, the CSR Co. has priority at its wharf. If a CSR ship comes into port while another ship is at the wharf, the latter must move off and allow the CSR ship to tie up.

While no one disputes the com pany’s right to use its own wharf when and how it wishes, this CSR priority naturally does not make other ship-owners anxious to dis charge cargo at Lautoka and a considerable amount of Lautoka cargo is discharged at Suva and goes on by road or by small coastal ship.

SOME of the garbled press reports on the matter of the proposed Lautoka wharf seem to suggest that the CSR Co. are against it, because they want to go on using their own wharf.

There has been no suggestion that they will not go on using their own wharf; there is no proposal to pull down the existing wharf. When the new wharf is built it will be at some other site.

It was also suggested in August PIM that the CSR Co. did not charge anyone for using their wharf.

Maybe the company do not—but the Government, through the port and customs authorities, charge wharf age on all goods just as in other ports.

Lautoka’s wharf plan is no new thing. There have been many plans and many suggested sites ranging

from somewhere near the Lautoka Hotel in the town—which is a very long way from the CSR wharf—to adjacent to the CSR wharf, where there are already two large cranes, and provision for small-ships.

The proposed wharf was discussed with Mr. Dugdale when he visited Lautoka in August. He was of the opinion that the town probably did not need one—but, as the Governor, Sir Brian Freeston, pointed out to him, it had already been decided that Lautoka did need it. and that it was now only a matter of when, where and how much.

New Wharf For Suva

ANEW wharf is also needed in Suva, where it is not now un usual for trucks to crash through the wooden decking.

Piers and other supports to the structure are said to be in an ex tremely unsatisfactory state.

A local estimate is that it would probably cost half a million pounds to provide Suva with suitable wharf facilities.

The present wharf was built 35 years ago and at that stage experts stated that the decking was not strong enough to carry laden lorries.

They were therefore kept off it un til the crisis days of the Second World War when the Army took matters into its own hands. Since then heavy lorries have gone onto the wharf—with unfortunate re sults.