NEW SERVICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 8

NEW SERVICE.

N.Z.-EAST INDIES.

DUTCH ENTERPRISE.

FIRST SHIP QUE IN MAY.

SAILINGS EACH MONTH. TVing two vessels, one a steamer and the other a brand-new motor ship, the well-known Dutch shipping company usually known as the K.P.M Line is to inaugurate a direct service between New Zealand and the East Indies in the. near future. The initials stand for Koninklijke Puketvaart Maatschappij, translatable as "Hoya 1 Packet Navigation Company." This company, one of the largest in the world, runs regular steamer services be--1 ween Europe and the East Indies and has two passenger-carrying motor ships, the Nionw Zecland and tho Nieuw Holland, pljing regularly from Sydney to Iho East Indies. Its vessels have, however, rarely come as far as New Zealand, though one of its cargo steamers, the Siberoet, discharged sugar from Java at Chelsea last month. According to advice received by the local agents of the line, Messrs. Russell and Somers, Ltd., the new service is to he commenced with the steamer Van Bees, of 3050 tons, carrying, in addition to cargo, 46 passengers in two classes. This vessel is to be dispatched from Singapore in April, and is due at Auckland, via Batavia, Samaraug, Sourabaya and Port Moresby on May 6. From here she is to go to Wellington, whence she is to return to the East Indies via Sydney. Thereafter the two vessels are to maintain a regular service between the East Indies, Auckland and Wellington, arriving at Auckland early in each month. They are expected to open a new era in trade between the Dominion and the East, with which there has been hitherto very little direct maritime contact. The only vessels now trading directly between New Zealand and the East are Japanese tramp steamers tliat bring sulphur and take away scrap iron, the Japanese Osaka Shoeen Kaisha Line motor ships, which maintain a regular service between here and Japan, via Sydney, and the Union Company's chartered -steamer Narbada, which makes three trips a year from Calcutta, via Penang, Singapore and Samarang to Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton, Dunedin and Bluff, arriving at Auckland in January, May and September. The Narbada 5s sometimes reinforced by another vessel when more cargo offers than she can carry.

Most of the New Zealand cargo consigned to the East Indies and cargo from the East Indies consigned to New Zealand is therefore transhipped at Sydney.