THE UNION COMPANY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10405, 17 March 1910, Page 2

THE UNION COMPANY.

INTERVIEW WITH SIR JAMES MILLS. < . (Per Pbess Associa^on.) Auckland, March 16. Sir James Mills, managing director of tlie Union Steam Ship Company, arrived in Auckland by the P. and O. liner Mongolia from Sydney to-day. In the course of an interview Sir James saiil there was nothing new to chronicle beyond the statement made by him in Sydney a week ago, to the effect that the Company had decided to replace the wrecked Waikare with a vessel of the Marama type, and to have her running next summer. The Company had also purchased the Canadian-Australian mail steamer Aorangi, and intended holding her as a reserve steamer. The New Zealand Shipping Company, since the laying up of the Aorangi last January, has had no farther connection with the Syd-ney-Vancouver service, and this line will in future be carried 011 entirely by the Union Company with its own steamers. The Union Company was desirous of securing a contract with the Commonwealth Government which would enable them to pin no the Vancouver service on a still better footing. Questioned in regard to the proposed new service between Australia and London via South America, connecting with the Trans-Andine Railway at Valparaiso, Sir James Mills declined to express any opinion 011 the subject, in view of the fact that 110 news of the proposition had reached him until his arrival in Auckland this morning. The question of distances and possibilities of trade between Australia and New Zealand with Chili need to be seriously gone into, Sir .James Mills explained, before any definite opinion could be expressed.