GOVERNMENT MOTOR SHIP CRITICISED.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 August 1928, Page 5

GOVERNMENT MOTOR SHIP CRITICISED.

PROFESSOR SAYS IT IS NOT A BRILLIANT PRODUCTION.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day.

Professor Macmiilan Brown was a passenger by the .Maui Poniare. In an interview, referring to the loss of fruit, he said, "J can not say that the Maui Poniare is a brilliant production for a vessel so recently launched. The engine equipment will have to be looked after more carefully. Too many defects for a new vessel have been revealed."

Prof. Brown recalled that the vessel was delayed for three days at Auckland at the commencement of her maiden voyage, to the Islands, owing to the dynamo that drove the steering gear having blown out. .Winch trouble at Niue caused half a day's delay. The failure of the brine pumps on the present voyage completed'a trinity of trouble. "She should be overhauled every time she comes to New Zealand," said Prof. Brown; "otherwise it would seem that she will be a failure all along the line." Mr S. J. Smith, departmental secretary, denies that the ship's engines aire unsatisfactory. The damage to the fruit, he .believed, wnjs due to several contributory causes: The .judgment of the New Zealand Government in ordering the Diesel engine was fully endorsed by the recent report issued at Lloyds,

5000 CASES OF BANANAS THROWN OVERiiOAKi*. News was received in Wellington on Friday that the Government motorship Maui Pomare, bound from Niue and Samoa to Dunedin direct, had met with a mishap to her refrigerating plant and was proceeding to Auckland, and would leave her cargo of fruit there. The Maui Pomare. arrived at Auckland yesterday, and reported that 5000 cases of bananas from the Islands had been jettisoned at sea. She had only 200 cases fit for consumption. The cause of the loss ha s not been established, but it is understood the refrigerating apparatus was in good working order. The weather on the voyage was not unduly hot, but the temperature in the banana hold rose to 100 degrees, double that required, a day or so after leaving Apia. An inquiry is being held.