No Islanders on Thallo run

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32706, 8 September 1971, Page 16

No Islanders on Thallo run

A decision by the Seamen’s Union will prohibit the motor vessel Thallo from beginning a regular service between Lyttelton and Suva with the crew of Pacific Islanders which manned this ship when it was trading between Auckland and Rarotonga, the chairman of the Pacific Islands Shipping Action Committee !(Mr H. E. Radley) said yesterday.

• Islanders, and would continue . to do so, he said. The vessel was intended to ' be used almost entirely to take goods sold to Fiji, and possibly Fijian traders should i have the right tb nominate ■ crews for some of the vessels 1 trading between their couni try and New Zealand, said I Mr Radley. i “After all, the three ships . trading from . Auckland to i Suva are crewed by members of the Seamen’s Union. It woiild not be surprising to : see strong objections on these : grounds raised in Fiji,” he i said. Mr Radley said there was : still another New Zealandowned company interested in the Lyttelton-Suva trade, and i it was hoped that this company would have a vessel available by next March—i when the produce trade would begin in volume, con- ' tinuing until about October.

Mr Radley said that the committee was deeply disappointed with the union’s action. The small refrigerated vessel would have been ideal to begin the trade between Lyttelton and Suva, said Mr Radley. It would have been preferable to a bigger vessel which might have been too large to run the service profitably with the cargo offering. “A substantially larger vessel would' have to call at North Island ports to top up; the delay caused would be unsatisfactory for perishable products. Moreover, once vessels start calling at northern ports, fate seems gradually to take them away from us altogether," said Mr Radley. The owners of the Thallo had been paying New Zealand rates to the crew of