USE FOR THE HINEMOA.

Evening Star, Issue 23683, 17 September 1940, Page 5

USE FOR THE HINEMOA.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The somewhat belated movement for the reclamation and conversion of waste materials in this Dominion will need speeding up if it is to be of value in our war effort. Last year the British Government allocated £10,000,000 for building tramps and cargo liners and £2,000,000 for the purchase of old ships. Several months ago the steamer Hinemoa was lying in an inlet at Stewart Island rusting away. If this boat could be reconditioned she would surely he of use if only for sinking at the entrance of an enemy port; and if she can be made seaworthy I am sure Otago and Southland could find the money to do the job and present the boat for war service wherever she might he needed. The Hinemoa was built on the Clyde and launched in 1876. Tho best of materials and workmanship were put into her, and the designer truly stated at the launching that she would he running when everyone in the shipyards was only a memory. It has been said that tho Hinemoa was originally intended for the Sultan of Turkey, but instead was used to fill an order from the New Zealand Government, and was paid for out of Sir Julius Vogel’s public works loan of 1875. After years of service as a Government steamer she was sold by the Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward) in 1929 to an Invercargill firm. Captain Bolions. who was her skipper for some years, said: ‘‘She is a beautiful ship and can sail like a witch.” Another seafaring man who know the vessel said that when she was sold in 1929 her plates were as good as any new vessel. By the way, Sir Joseph Ward had no difficulty in finding a inillion pounds

for a battleship at a less critical time than this, and at a time when public credit was not so freely used as it now is; therefore, why cannot New Zealand have a fleet of six or seven flying boats now at this time providing a daily mail service with Australia? If they were fully armed they would be a valuable patrol policing the Tasman and keeping a sharp lookout for raiders, besides which they would afford an excellent training servcc for air pilots.

The British dominions should he able to relieve the Homeland of any responsibility for the defence of Egypt during the war and turn the Italian advance into defeat. We move too slowly. Quick action is required, because Germany is about to make her supreme elfort.—l am, etc., September 14. A.E.S.