Reports and No

Cook Islands

Fruit

Reports and No Action

AN example of official inertia is given by the NZ Government’s delay in acting on a report pre pared 12 months ago on the pos sibilities of developing the fruit ex port trade from the Cook Islands.

Mr. J. Wattle, managing director of Wattle’s Canneries, Hastings, went to the Cooks at the invitation of the Government to make an in vestigation, and he prepared a re port which he considered would be of material advantage to the group itself, while integrating its fruit pro duction (especially of pineapples) with NZ industrial resources.

A year later all Mr. Wattle had heard were “vague suggestions that the report is still under investiga tion.”

Mr. Wattie’s opinion is that a quick-freeze plant at Rarotonga was the solution to the problem. The pineapple crop could be quick-frozen and brought to Napier in the Maui Pomare (which has 37,000 cubic feet of cargo space) and treated at the company’s canneries at Hastings.

It would be uneconomic to establish a canning plant at Raro tonga, or any other island in the group. It would also be impractic able to bring the unfrozen fruit to New Zealand for canning because it would not carry well.

However, if it were quick-frozen first, sufficient could be put on the market to meet demand, and any surplus could be canned. Other pro duce of the Islands could be treated in the same way.

Mr. Wattie said that until some industry was established for the Cook Islands people their position could not be expected to improve.

New Zealand’s annual grant of £320,000 a year merely “kept the people alive.”

“It is 12 months since I made my report and I have not been given the satisfaction of knowing whether it has been accepted or rejected.

“I felt that the report was the property of the Government, but seeing that 12 months have passed without any reply to my proposals, I see no reason why the public should not know what I recom mended. It is hardly fair not to give a decision on such an im portant subject.” t Mr. R. H. Lester was recently ordained as a deacon of the Church of England at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Suva, by the Bishop in Polynesia, the Rt. Rev. L. S.

Kempthorne. Mr. Lester will leave shortly for New Zealand. He hopes to be ordained as an Anglican priest towards the end of next year.