Our Whalers Hard Hit.

The greedy slaughter of whales on a truly colossal scale in the Antarctic by the Norwegian and other gun-armed killing page 29 ships is having a direct injurious effect on our own New Zealand whaling industry. The principal man engaged in it on the North Auckland coast, Captain Bertie Cook, of Whangamumu, says that whales have very appreciably declined in numbers since the Southern Ocean and Ross Sea hunting fleets began operations. There are far fewer humpbacks making north on their periodical migrations to the breeding grounds in the tropics, when they are accustomed to come close in to the east coast of New Zealand. As for right whales, the more valuable kind, they have practically disappeared, whalemen say. So a little industry of our own, and indeed our oldest industry is in danger of dwindling to vanishing point. Certainly that close season for whales for a term of years is overdue.

The news comes now that the Norse hunters have decided to lay up their huge fleets for next summer, about time! But it is not out of consideration for the whales—not much! The huge over-production of oil has glutted the market, that's why.

This tremendous flood of whale-oil is, moreover, swamping the South Sea copra business, which is all-important to New Zealand's tropic possessions and the mandated region of Samoa. Copra is being ousted by cheap oil in certain manufactures abroad. Clearly something must be done to protect our staple Island industry.