A NEGLECTED PORT

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 23, 19 August 1932, Page 5

A NEGLECTED PORT

SHIPS DO NOT CALL AT KAIKOURA "RESULT OF ENCOURAGING RAILWAYS" Special Service. CHRISTCHURCH, To-day.— "Kaikoura is really worse off now than if the work on the South Island Main Trunk had never been started," said a Kaikoura business man to a Sun reporter to-day. "On the understanding that we would soon have a railway right at our doors we disregarded the trading vessels that once called regularly and consigned our goods to Parnassus, where tlfsy were picked up by the trains. 'This was by way of showing the Railway Department that we intended to support the railways, and to encourage them to push on with the Main Trunic. "it is now more than 12 months since a trading vessel called at Kaikoura, and, to get our goods to Wellington, we have to have them taken to Parnassus by lorry, to Christchurch and Lyttelton by train and to Wellington by steamer, which makes the freight steamer charges very heavy. "Some years ago we had regular callers, including the Wakatu and Cygnet. The Wakatu was wrecked, and, because we were endeavouring to give the railways a little encouragement by consigning our stuff to Parnassus, the Cygnet was withdrawn. We haven't had a trading vessel at Kaikoura for months. It's too expensive to send our produce to Wellington by way of Pictdn so we have to send it all through Christchurch. We seem to have fallen between two stools."