COOK ISLANDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 120, 17 November 1937, Page 6

COOK ISLANDS

HANDLING OF FRUIT

Mr. d. L. • Hunter (Government, Manawatu); a member of the Parliamentary delegation to the Cook Islands, urged a more progressive policy of public works in the Islands.- The present position, he said, had existed fo* many years and the Government was facing a fairly high expenditure to put matters right. Mr. Holland said that he was anxious to see that both the Government and the natives received the greatest benefit from the expenditure. He questioned the value of erecting a cool store' at Rarotonga at a cost of £35,000, and said that the store could not benefit the outer islands to any great extent. It would cost as much to take the fruit from the outer islands to Rarotonga as to ship it from Rarotonga to New Zealand, so that the result of centralised cool storage would be to double the freight charges. Under the pooling system there was no encouragement to improve the standard of fruit, and. some old-established planters had been obliged to leave the Islands as a result.

CONFIDENCE IN SCHEME,

Mr. J. Robertson (Government, Masterton), chairman of the Parliamentary Committee that visited the Islands, said the idea of the cool store was that the fruit could be picked at the proper time and kept until the arrival of the ship. In regard to the, outer islands a better solution of the fruit problem would undoubtedly be a better shipping service. He was pleased that the offer of 4s a case made by the merchants had not been accepted. In the past scheme after scheme had been wrecked by the traders, and he hoped that the scheme adopted on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee would not be wrecked in th? same way. He was sure that it vfould-be to the advantage of both1 the growers and New Zealand. Mr. Hunter said he wondered why the merchants had not previously offered 4s per case if they were offering it this year. He wondered also how many cases of oranges would have le*ft the Islands on that basis. The Parliamentary Committee had found merchants buying up cargo space which was not used. . The Prime Minister said that the Government was not spending money for the sake of spending it, but simply to meet the requirements of the situation. ■■'.'' The Vote was passed.