TAHITI TO SAMOA AND HONOLULU.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 383, 10 July 1889, Page 4

TAHITI TO SAMOA AND HONOLULU.

Amongst latest news items from Papeete (Tahiti) we learn that the French Colonial Department have issued chculars inviting tenders for the establishment of a line of steamers, carrying mails, jrassengers and cargo, to trade regularly between Tahiti and Honolulu via Apia (Samoa), to connect at the Hawaiian Islands for 'Frisco with the Oceanic Steamship Co.'s steamers Alameda, Mafiposa, and Zealandia running from Auckland to San Francisco. The tenders are returnable at Tahiti on or before September 15th next, and at Paris on November 15th. The firms, if any, tendering are requested to state the terms on which they will be prepared to establish an intermediate service ; the tonnage and description of the steamers which they purpose placing in the trade ; concessionsto be made toFiench authorities and functionaries travelling from America to Tahiti, and to guarantee the carrying out of the conditions imposed on them by the French Government. The object of the proposed steam service is to establish with America, via Samoa, more direct communication and faster transmission of mails and passengers to San Francisco. At present the only regular connecting link between Tahiti and California is the San Francisco mail schooner City of Papeete, a smart and punctual little vessel certainly, but affording most inadequate means of communication and forwarding of passengers and Island cargo. . The steam service, if established, is likely to take away irom New Zealand a considerable portion of Tahitian produce at present exported almost solely to Auckland by Messrs Donald and Edenborough's steamer Richmond and sailing-vessels and other craft.