The Cannery That Has

Never Canned

New Plans for Pago Industry

IN Pago Pago Harbour, American Samoa, across the bay from the township, there is a fish cannery that has never canned a fish. Built in 1949 for South Sea Marine Pro ducts of Suva, it was to process fish caught by that organisation—which never succeeded in catching the right kinds of fish in payable quantities.

When SSMP closed down, the cannery was in process of being dismantled when word came to build it up again. There was a waterfront rumour that tuna boats operating out of Honolulu would discharge their catches there for canning by another American con cern. This plan never eventuated and the cannery continued to lie idle.

It is now reported that a plan is afoot for American tuna boats to fish from a base stationed on Christmas Island, central Pacific — if permission can be obtained from the Western Pacific High Com missioner—and to run the fish in a freezer mother-ship to the cannery at Pago Pago. It is believed that following the November visit of high Trust Territory officials to Eastern Samoa from Honolulu, something definite will be attempted in the way of establishing a fish canning industry in Eastern Samoa which is urgently seeking new in dustries. (See new Governor’s state ment, page 20).

Presumably fish could be canned at a lower price in Pago Pago than in Hawaii, but whether the price would still be lower after cost of transporting the fish 1,300 miles from Christmas, then presumably all the way back to Honolulu or the States, seems doubtful. [I Miss Joan Dexter, of the Agri cultural Department, Port Moresby, was in Brisbane on leave in No vember, but was making plans for a< trip in the Nellore to Japan, Hongkong and Indonesia.

ff Pastor and Mrs. Gustav Bergmann, of the Lutheran Mission, Boana, near Lae, New Guinea, are on their way back to the Territory after 12 months’ leave in Germany.

With them is their 4-years-old daughter Hedwig; their seven other children have been left in Germany for their education. Mr. Bergmann

has given 23 years of his life to mission work in New Guinea.

The Assistant Purser of the M.V.

Malaita (Mr. D. Lilly) sustained a fractured skull when he fell into the vessel’s hold at Honiara on October 31. Mr. Lilly was admitted to the Central Hospital, Matanikau.