NEW LINE OF STEAMERS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 14049, 20 July 1916, Page 6

NEW LINE OF STEAMERS.

NEW YORK TO NEW ZEALAND. • Among the. passengers to arrive in Wellington from San Francisco by the Maitai was Mr. Harold H. Ebey, of San Francisco, who comes to New Zealand to appoint or set up an agency tor thq Luckenbach Steamship Company, which has decided to enter into the cargo-carrying trade between New York and San Francisco and New Zealand and Australia. Mr. Ebey gays that the decision ia not a tiling of yesterday, as ho expected the Florence Luckenbach lo arrive from New York, via the Panama Canal, with a full general cargo, and the Edgar Luckenbach is due at Auckland tliis week with a full cargo of oil, which indicates pretty clearly that the Luckenbach people mean business. Mr. Ebey states that the Luckenbach fleet consists of twelve American-built steamers, ranging from 7500 •to 12,500 tons register. They have been employed to a very great extent in the trade between New York and San Francisco since the Canal was opened, but when the earth slid down and divided the two biggest oceans once more the Luckenbach Company shut down temporarily on the San Francisco trade, and accepted rumunerative trade in other parts. Now the Canal is all clear again, and freights to Australia and I New Zealand being high, it was con- ! ceived to be good business to come this way, and the company's representative states that hereafter one steamer a | month will arrive at either Wellington i or Auckland with oil or general cargo, or both, part for New Zealand, the rest for Sydney and Melbourne. Mr Ebey admitted frankly that tlie nam j of his company smacked of people who are not altogether too popular in these parts, but the connection was a. very remote one indeed, as the Luckenbach Company had been established in America for some 25 years, and their steamers had been bulit in America, with American capital. Every steamer of the line was a Luckenbach — with distinguishing Christian names, that really became the names of the boats, as far as those connected -with the company was concerned.