THE ISLAND FRUIT SERVICE.
The recommendation of the Industries and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives that Auckland and Dunedin should be omitted from the itinerary of the motor vessel, Maui Pomarc, which was built in order that the South Island ports might enjoy the receipt of shipments of fruit direct from the South Sea islands, is distinctly unsatisfactory. With the recommendation that the itinerary of the vessel should be curtailed is coupled a recommendation that arrangements should be made with a private'shipping company, presumably by way of subsidy, to take up the trade with Norfolk Island if the Maui Pomare is withdrawn from it. Why the committee should concern itself about the trade with Norfolk Island, a dependency of Australia, is not clear! It was no part of the purpose for which the Maui Pomare was built that she should be engaged in trading to Norfolk Island. It was expressly designed, however, that she should be utilised to bring island fruit to both Lyttelton and Dunedin and to enable residents in the South Island to
secure this - fruit on terms much more favourable and in condition 'much better than was possible when the fruit was brought to Auckland and then transhipped to the south. The merchants and consumers in Auckland were already well served before the Maui Pomare was procured. And it would be somewhat absurd if their interests were now to be specially considered when, in the hope of reducing the loss that has been incurred in the running of the vessel, a revision of her programme has become necessary. If, however, the port of Dunedin is to be omitted from the vessel’s itinerary, a complete departure will be made from the design with which she was constructed, and, since the Minister of Railways expresses a doubt whether it would be economically possible for the department, to provide insulated carriages to admit of the distribution of the fruit by rail at southern stations, a seriously retrograde step will be taken.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 20869, 8 November 1929, Page 8
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333THE ISLAND FRUIT SERVICE. Otago Daily Times, Issue 20869, 8 November 1929, Page 8
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