MISSION SCHOONER WRECKED.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20024, 4 September 1930, Page 16

MISSION SCHOONER WRECKED.

ALL ABOARD SAVED.

(U2TITJGD PRBSB ASSOCIATION—BY BUSCTBIO TELROEiPH —COPTBIOHT.) (Received September 3rd, 7.5 p.m.) SUVA. September 3. ' The Methodist Mission schooner, John Wesley, struck Argo Reef, neat Oneata, Fiji, and sank in 18 feet of water. All aboard were saved. A salvage party has been sent to the scene of the wreck. The John Wesley, which was under the direction of the Australian Methodist Missionary Society, is the third of its schooners to be wrecked within the past few months. One was recently lost at New Guinea and the other on the coast of the Northern Territory of Australia. The Australian Society operates among the islands about Fiji and Tonga, as well as in the territories named, and has several schooners, both large and small, which are chiefly occupied in carrying the island missionaries when they are visiting the various groups The Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt stated last evening that he did not think the John Wesley would bo very large, and that he believed the Australian Society had an insurance and replacement fund, although the loss of three schooners within a short time would lie a considerable drain on it. The New Zealand Society worked in the Solomon Islands, and had two large and one or two smaller schooners, which were cetnred about the ports of Rabaul and Roviana.