The Daily News SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1934. STEAMER SERVICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 6

The Daily News

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1934. STEAMER SERVICES.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUTH, Currie Street. STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA, High Street.

There will be a good deal of sympathy in Taranaki for the efforts of such public bodies as the local Motor Association, Chamber of Commerce and the Southland League in their efforts to obtain better communication with Australia for the provinces of Southland and Otago. The associations are anxious that their districts shall develop tourist traffic, and they, like Taranaki in this regard, consider their districts are suffering from the neglect of the authorities who control that traffic and that Southland suffers still more from the lack of direct communication between Australia and the South Island. But with all goodwill towards the southern provinces of the Dominion, consideration of a few facts makes it impossible to support the suggestion made by local organisations to the Prime Minister at Invercargill that the Government should reestablish the subsidised BluffMelbourne steamer service. Four years ago that service. was reopened with a subsidy to the Union Steam Ship Company of £36,000 a year in the hope that passenger and cargo traffic would develop sufficiently to relieve the Post and Telegraph Department of the heavy cost of conveying mails by that route and the general taxpayer who had, in the long run, to provide the subsidy. The experiment proved a failure. Misfortune came when the steamer Manuka was wrecked, and no doubt the disruption of the service and the fact that a wreck had occurred on what was to have been the “tourist” route to southern New Zealand, had its effect upon passenger traffic. The Union Co. substituted the steamer Maheno for the Manuka, so that there could be no complaint of the class of accommodation offered for tourist traffic. Unfortunately the traffic did not eventuate. The first indications of the coming depression were making themselves clear, and the number of tourists showed no signs of increase. The same applied to cargoes. On three voyages the Maheno carried 320, 837 and 652 tons of cargo respectively, a quantity obviously insufficient to warrant a regular service by steamers of such a standard as the Maheno. Meanwhile the strain upon the Dominion’s resources increased, and it was not surprising that the Southland Farmers’ Union in August, 1930, condemned the Bluff-Melbourne steamer service on the ground that its value did not warrant the expenditure. Since then the Dominion has certainly had no funds for extravagant experiments in shipping services, while to re-establish the service would have almost certainly involved an' increased subsidy, to the Union Company. Nor could the deputation point to any serious handicap to the producers of Southland caused by the lack of a direct steamer service to Melbourne. Recovery in Australia has undoubtedly begun, just as it has in New Zealand. But how far the improvement in the Commonwealth, outside the rise in the price of wool, is due to the borrowing that has made a considerable increase in the floating debt has yet to be determined. It is quite clear, however, that to establish a costly steamer service in the hope of its support by a large stream of tourist traffic is to take an unwarranted risk with public money. Nor is there anything in the trading between Australia and New- Zealand to warrant the opinion that direct service from Bluff to Melbourne would lead to improved markets for Southland producers. The Southland Farmers* Union considered this aspect of the matter before condemning the proposal over three years ago, and even if some benefit would have accrued to some of the members it is to the credit of the Farmers’ Union that it regarded the steamer service from the national rather than the provincial point of view and recommended its discontinuance to the Government. Trading with Australia has shown some signs of improvement, and if the present trade agreement can be broadened to make co-operation more complete there is ground for the belief that trade with the Commonwealth will expand still further. But taking the optimistic view of all the circumstances it is perfectly certain that payment of heavy subsidy for a BluffMelbourne steamer service cannot be justified.