Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5533, 23 May 1889, Page 2

Attention is drawn elsewhere in out columns to facilities and inducements held out to settlers to occupy small farms on Sunday Island, on the leasehold of the Kermedec Fruit and Produce Association. The terms offered are decidedly novel and attractive, and it will be a matter of interest to watch the development of a settlement in this latest annexed part of the New Zealand colony. In these times, when colonisation proceeds by leaps and bounds, the island that is to-day luxuriant in a vegetation of Nature's planting may in a short time be tilled and cultivated, and the soeno of a prosperous settlement. The position of Sunday Island as a Jruit-producing centre for New Zealand markets is advantageous, being 1200 miles nearer Auckland than Samoa and Raratonga, the present sources of supply. This will in time enable us to enjoy the luxury of sound ripe tropical fruits instead of the stale immature commodities with which we aro now perforco content. Another noteworthy feature is that fruit imported from the Kermedecs would be exempt from the usual import ■ duty, and this in the case of the more valuable products would prove a considerable bonus to the grower. The comparative isolation of the settlement is distinctly qualified by the fact tlat Sunday Island is on the line of route of the s.s. Mawhora and Richmond, trading between Auckland and Samoa, so that communication could be held as required. The island has no harbor, but there are three landings, at one or other of which landing can be effected in any weather. It is pointed out in S. Percy Smith's published report on the Kennedeo that tho grand and striking Rcenery and singularly fine climate will no doubt make Sunday Island attractive as a winter resort for invalids and tourists.