Must Rely

Cook Is. Still Must Rely On Maui Pomare

Auckland, Oct. 20.

CONSTERNATION was felt in Cook Islands circles when it was learned that the advent of the new Union Steamship Co’s Tofua (to make her first run to the Islands from Auckland on De cember 21) would not assist the shipping position in the Group.

It had been assumed that when the Tofua came into the service, Matua would be diverted to Cook Islands trade—for which she was originally built. This apparently was the belief of the NZ Govern ment also. In answer to a question asked in Parliament in Wellington on October 10, the Minister for Islands Territories said that “with additional shipping expected shortly it will be possible to bring to NZ ports all the produce grown in the Cook Islands.” (It was known in Suva in early September that Matua would not run to Cook Is. See page 93, October PIM.) In the Group there has been con siderable replanting of citrus trees in the belief that additional ship ping would soon be available to lift fruit.

The position with the two USS ships now is that Tofua will arrive in Auckland from the UK on De cember 6 and leave about December 21 for Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, etc.

Matua, between December 18 and 28, will make a special trip from Auckland to Suva and return.

Thereafter she is expected to supplement the Tofua’s itinerary calling at Nukualofa and/or Apia

each trip and making calls also at Lyttelton and Wellington, NZ.

Her exact itinerary will be an nounced from trip to trip.

PIM inquiries at the Auckland office of the USS Co., got nothing official but the opinion of one official of the company is that at the height of the orange and tomato seasons Matua will make trips to the Cook Islands “when other cargo vessels on the trans-Pacific run are not available.”

The Cook Group is obviously to be left to the services of the hope lessly outmoded and overloaded little Maui Pomare. The position will not be helped either by the fact that Rarotonga will shortly be with out an air service. (See elsewhere this issue.)