Clothing Factory Is A Surprise

In most respects, Rarotonga is right out at the end of the line. But it also has some extraordinary surprises. One of these is the clothing factory of Scott and Watson Ltd. in Avarua where over 200 women are employed making garments for New Zealand. There is nothing similar or on such a scale anywhere else in the South Pacific islands.

Material comes in under bond and the finished product enters New Zealand duty-free. Garments made under mass-production, assembly line methods, include shorts, pyjamas, slacks, and dressing gowns.

The women who work at the factory are probably the highest paid in the Cook Islands and all of them are Outer Islanders, not Rarotongans.

Many of them, as soon as they have saved the fare, go on from the Avarua factory to New Zealand where they have no trouble getting similar work.

Manager of the factory is a New Zealander, Duncan Bertram, who blew in on a yacht some years ago and remained to put his roots down in local soil.

The Avarua factory exists because the Cook Islands are included in the boundaries of New Zealand and because Cook Islanders are NZ citizens. The Cook Islands Maoris will remain NZ citizens after self government this year but Cl businessmen, including the clothing factory owners, are wondering what other implications the new political set-up could have for them after 1965.