“HAVING BAD TIME"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 6

“HAVING BAD TIME"

NORFOLK ISLANDERS FRUIT EXPORT PROBLEM » (Special to tlio Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. The orange growers of Norfolk Island were disturbed at the lack of shipping facilities between the island and New Zealand, said Mr. A. E. Mabin, a Wellington business man, who arrived at Auckland yesterday after a trip to the East. The success of their efforts seemed to be subject to the vagaries of the weather and on Monday only 000 cases out of 2600 could be loaded from the surf boats to the Dutch motor ship Maetsuycker, which arrived at Auckland yesterday. Mr. Mabin said that when the Maetsuycker approached the island on Monday there was such a heavy surf that the vessel could not get within a quarter of a mile of the shore. Several boats were manned by the islanders and fruit was loaded and rowed across to the Maetsuycker. The sea became rougher and when the 600th case had been taken on to the motorship the captain decided it would be too hazardous to attempt further loading. As it was, the loading had taken from seven in the morning iintF. three o’clock In the afternoon. “The islanders are having a bad time,” added Mr. Mabin. “They can get oranges to Australia once in three weeks, but the fruit does not fetch the prices to be obtained in New Zealand. The Australians can gel abundant supplies of oranges, but we in New Zealand arc starving for them.”