U.S. Passenger Liner Link With N.Z. Now Severed

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22707, 4 August 1948, Page 6

U.S. Passenger Liner Link With N.Z. Now Severed

(T.A.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 4. When the grey wantime-built steamer, Marine Phoenix, drew away from Queen's Wharf yesterday afternoon, the last link was severed for an indefinite period with American passenger liners which have served the south Pacific trade for many years on charter to the Matson Line since the end of 1946, The Marine Phoenix will be handed back to the United States Maritime Commission at the completion of her present voyage to San Francisco, The company has no plans as yet for future service. “There is no likelihood of the liners Mariposa and Monterey returning to service to New Zealand and Australia," said Mr. Earl D. Walker, passenger traffic manager of the Oceanic Steamship Company in Sydney, who passed through Auckland in the Marine Phoenix.

Both vessels were now 16 years old and increasing costs had made their reconstruction an uneconomic proposition. They had now been offered to the Maritime Commission, he ' said. The Mariposa was GO per cent reconstructed and the Monterey 30 per cent, but the American Government would not give the company a subsidy for refitting them. In addition, the operational subsidy on each ship would finish in four years, whereas if the company built new ships it would receive on each one a 50 per cent construction subsidy and a 20-year operational subsidy. A big factor weighing against the resumption of the south Pacific service was the shortage of dollars which made pleasure travel to Americans very difficult and another was the slow turn round of ships in Australian and New Zealand ports. The company’s passenger departments in Sydney and Melbourne had now closed down and there was no indication when they would reopen. A cargo service with four freighters, each of which could carry 12 passengers, would be continued.

CO-OPERATION NEEDED