MELBOURNE TO BLUFF

Southland Times, Issue 19358, 25 September 1924, Page 6

MELBOURNE TO BLUFF

THE INJUSTICE TO SOUTHLAND. The inadequate steamer service between Dunedin and the Bluff, and Melbourne was again referred to by a leading merchant, reports the Otago Daily Tunes. To emphasise his contention that the southern portion of the Dominion was not receiving fair treatment he showed an Otago Daily Times reporter a letter he had received from a Melbourne firm, which contained the following complaint:—“We are using our utmost endeavours to secure shipping on the 8«s. Moeraki, which steamer .’eaves Melbourne this week, although shipping space for the South Island is very difficult to obtain.” The Dunedin merchant pertinently asked why the South Island should be handicapped in this manner. He also referred to the irregular running of the Moeraki on the Melbourne service, and contrasted it with the regular running of the services from Wellington and Auckland tc Sydney. Passengers from the South who proposed to make a brief trip to Melbourne were often debarred from travelling by the Moeraki, because they could not make preparations for their departure with any certainty that they would be enabled to leave Dunedin at the date cf sailing first advertised. As a consequence, they were forced to use the Dunedin-Wellington-Sydney-Melbourne route. The merchant said he thought that in fairness to Otago and Southland the Moeraki could be tuned to run just as regular a service to Melbourne as the steamers from Wellington and Auckland to Sydney, which always sailed to time. He suggested that the question of better connection between Otago and Southland and Melbourne could very well be taken up by the Otago Expansion League.