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p. 40 · Read in the full issue
Cook Is. Shipping Costs:
The Luxury of Running the Maui Pomare
'J'HE NZ Government ship
Maui Pomare cost the NZ
taxpayers another £40,000 this
year; will probably cost £BO,OOO next year; but may remain on the Cook Islands service another 10 years.
The Island Territories Depart ments annual report for the year ended March 31, 1954, shows that ,J i Lfj? mare ’ s run t 0 the Cooks lost £40,965 as compared with £41,256 the previous year. Noting that with a ship of this age the annual survey and overhaul costs tend to increase year by year”—the vessel is in her 28th year of service—the report says that, while it does not pay to uplift less than 1,000 cases of fruit at an outer island, from a humane point of view it must be remembered that every case of fruit exported means about £1 in circula tion in that island.
The report does not say, as it might, that a worthwhile inter island shipping service could be en couraged and a quicker turn-round
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the outer islands were offering. T should be feasible if there were adequate cool store available Rarotonga. However, it is I heyed that the planned cool st< will soon be wholly inadequate : storage of the increasing fruit fr< the outer islands.