TRADE WITH AMERICA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2714, 8 March 1916, Page 8

TRADE WITH AMERICA

L The extraordinary l congestion in trade between the eastern coast of North America and Jfew Zealand, eays the ".New Zealand Herald," continues unrelieved. If there is any difference in the conditions, they are somewhat accentuated. Thero is ■the greatest difficulty in obtaining freights from American ports for goods ordered for New Zealand, and in consequence of the blockade in the ports, the railway lines of the Eastern States, extending back from the seaboard to the great manufacturing States, are still choked with goods awaiting shipment, over an area, stretch-' lng for hundreds of miles. Consequently, the railway companies are withholding permits for the sending of goods across their lines to the docKS with the exception of consignments tho carriage ol' which they have already undertaken. Tho importation of goods to the Dominion is both restricted and expensive, and priccs are soaring to an unprecedented extent. One Auckland importing firm, which deals largely in such goods as structural steel, barbed wire, nails, and the like, reports that within the last six weeks alone it has declined orders to the value of about £30,C00 because of the utter impossibility of assuring shipment. As to prices, It states that nails, which before the war were sold at from £7 10s. to £8 10s. pei ton, cannot now be procured for less than £25 per ton. Other lines of ironwork have risen in about the same proportion—more than 300 per cent., and even at these prices they cannot be imported owing to the . difficulties attending shipment.