COOK ISLANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13725, 15 April 1908, Page 8

COOK ISLANDS.

SHIPPING MATTERS. j SOME DISABILITIES. ' J [FROM OUR OWN .CORRESPONDENT.] j Mangaia, March 31. j A BIG cargo of product) goes forward by this ■ trip of the steamer, notwithstanding the • prices at the New Zealand markets are very I unsatisfactory. The Maori shippers here, ! though they have been told frequently that ! they would gain by importing sawn timber i laths and ends for 'their fruit boxes, persist i in their ''penny-wise-pound-foolish" policy i of sticking to their rough-hewn island crates, [ which are so objected to in New Zealand, i This, however, is a small matter compared j with the loss our shippers suffer through the | competition of the Tahitian, Tongan, and i Fiji shipments of fruit, which flood the New ' Zealand "markets, particularly the importations from the Western Pacific. When the Cook Group, was annexed, and became an integral pan of New Zealand, it, was fondly imagined by the local shippers that a "preferential tariff," however small in degree, would have been arranged, in order to have placed these "New Zealand islands" on an equal footing with Tonga and Fiji, those fortunate groups being some 400 miles nearer to New Zealand than is the Cook Group. This acts as a "preferential tariff" on their behalf, though they are foreign islands, in the sense of not being pari, of the Dominion. Again, those groups have good and secure harbours for loading purposes, while we have merely open roadsteads, subject to the vagaries of the ocean, and in the case of Mangaia everything has to be carried through the surf in canoes. The small measure of protection asked for by this group is simply sufficient to place it on the same footing as Tonga and Fiji, and to enable Cook Islands produce to compete on equal terms in our own New Zealand markets with the importations from those more favoured islands. It is reported that the work of blasting a boat channel through the reef at Oneroa will be commenced next June. It has long been agitated for, and if the work, under a, skilled artisan, is pushed forward to a successful issue, it will prove a great boon to this island. Such a channel will enable boats to be used instead of the cumbersome cargo canoes, which are continually being smashed on the reef, when the sea is at. all rough, or capsized alongside the steamer. It is looked upon here as the work of most importance. Mangaia being more entitled to relief in this direction than any. of the other islands of the group, from the fact that the Union Company's steamer calls here every month in the year to load produce and land cargo.