From The 'Isabella' To 'Montoro':

The Dear, Dead Days

By Judy Tudor

From the schooner Isabella in 1873 to the Montoro in the next year or so—that could be the whole story of the Bums Philp Line, once thought by Islands residents to be as permanent a part of the scene as Pacific reefs or coconuts.

Of the famous ships that once traded from Australia to the South- West Pacific, to the Far East or Malaysia, at this moment of writing only three remain: Tulagi, which is to be withdrawn from service late October; the chartered Marsina, with an option to renew coming up next year; and Montoro, tied up in Sydney since July, pending negotiations between company and maritime unions who cannot agree on a plan to re condition her to satisfy an Aus tralian crew.

With the disappearance of Tulagi from the Sydney-Solomons service, ends 75 years of Burns Philp Line association with that part of the Pacific.

The BP flag will be replaced there by that of the busy Karlander Line which has taken up much of the slack created in recent years by withdrawals from service of ships that once moved about the Pacific as immutably, we thought, as the stars in the heavens.

Karlander ships will, after Tulagi goes, call at Lord Howe Is. (as now), Norfolk Island, Vila and Santo, Honiara and Gizo.

There is a great deal of sentiment wrapped up in the instinctive, pained reaction to the apparent slow death of Burns Philp’s shipping services, just as there is, over the Tasman, in the threatened new ownership of another famous Line, Union Steam

Ship Co. But if post-war newcomers to the Pacific can operate with profit, why cannot the long-established shippers?

Part of the answer is that the new comers do not operate under Aus tralian (or New Zealand) articles, nor suffer the same pressures from Australian or NZ Governments. But so far as the Burns Philp Line is concerned, part of the answer is the merchant company itself and the tremendous diversification of interests that it has indulged in, in the last two decades.

Under these changed conditions not even having its own vessels to ship goods to its own Islands’ establishments has been worth the price of ownership.

BP ships were probably of greatest value to their owners in the period between the wars. By the 1930’s— in the days of the famous seven letter, “M” ships like the first Montoro and Malaita, the Macdhui and Montoro BP passenger-cargo vessels traded from Sydney to Papua- New Guinea, from Sydney to Lord Howe Is., Norfolk Is., the New Hebrides and the Solomons; from Sydney to the Far East and from Sydney to the then Netherlands Indies and Singapore. From Islands centres, smaller vessels with names no less famous than those of their larger sisters, provided local services.

But there were rumblings, even then. Mr. James Burns’ dire warn

ings about the unprofitability of passenger services were an annual event at general meetings of share holders. The implication was that they were continued only as a service to the people of the Islands who then had no other means of trans port—and only at the expense of continual internal war between public conscience and Scots respect for profit in the Presbyterian corporate body of BP.

Neptuna, which was on the Far East service, was blown up by Japanese bombers at Darwin during World War II and this service was not renewed after it.

The services to the Indies and Singapore also withered; local services based in Islands ports were curtailed and, in the last 10 years we have seen the disappearance of Malaita.

Bulolo, Burnside, Braesids, Malekula and Moresby. Now, with Tulagi soon to go, we have only the Montoro in its curious state of limbo.

As reported in PIM in June, when the company sold Moresby, the last of their ships with an Australian crew, to Singapore interests, the Australian Seamen’s Union declared her black although she was then loaded with $400,000 worth of goods for her last trip to New Guinea.

The boycott lasted five weeks and cost the company $70,000 before a compromise was reached. The union undertook to work the ship on its last Islands voyage if the company undertook to discharge its Papuan and Chinese crew on Montoro, convert her for an Australian crew and at the same time try to buy or build another suitable ship for the

An atmosphere of Maugham’

New Guinea service which would also be manned by Australians.

Since then Montoro has been tied up. Basic union requirements include single cabins for crew members and air conditioning. Some experts be lieve that this vessel, which was built with very different crew requirements in mind, cannot be converted in the style the union demands. If this is so, presumably the company will eventually be permitted to sell her.

The Australian Government sup ports the policy of Australian vessels with Australian crews on the Aus tralian-P-NG service (all BP ships once complied with this), and has stated that should BP withdraw entirely, requests would be made to other shipping lines using Australian crews to take over. How many would want to do so is another matter.

Australian seamen now earn around $6,000 for a work “year” of 32 weeks. A company working two ships now needs three crews—two working while the third rests. Under these circumstances Australian com panies say that it is difficult to com pete with vessels whose crews work under less stringent articles.

In personal terms BP ships meant considerably more to Islands residents before World War II than they do today. There were then only sketchy air services from P-NG to Sydney and none from the other territories, so the ships then were an extension of Islands life itself.

Marriages were made on them, and romances, extra-marital and otherwise, flourished on the two to three weeks voyages between Islands ports and Sydney.

In Islands outports, on the monthly or six-weekly visit of a vessel, almost the entire European population flocked on board to drink cold beer and eat food that did not come out of a can.

At sea, the atmosphere of a Somerset Maugham novel prevailed.

In the morning or evening, stewards drew baths and solemnly ushered their passengers to them, whereupon passengers were expected to stand in the bath, up to their hocks in hot sea water, while from a wooden tub they poured -fresh over themselves with a bamboo ladle. At night, for dinner, ladies wore long evening gowns and were enjoyably out numbered about three to one by gentlemen in starched white drill or linen suits.

Now, of course, that sort of thing is all part of the dear, dead days.

Well, dead anyway.