TEA AND RUM.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1920, Page 4

TEA AND RUM.

GLUTS AT THE DOCKS. LONDON, Jan. 20. Tea continues to pour into the Port of London and ships are still waiting to take the inturn at the docks. A visit to Tilbury presents a spectacle such as these docks .have never afforded before with this commodity. At other docks, it is said, there are'puncheons of rum that, placed end to end, would extend for miles. The sijme might be said of the chests of tea at Tilbury.

From ships docked so closely together that the area seems solid with them the cranes are swinging piles of tea chests to the quays. A small army of men is piling them up to the rafters of the transit sheds. Barges also are full of them. One lighterman has instructions to deal with 16,000 chests that wore landed more than a fortnight ago. He confesses his difficulty in keeping up with the traffic. Instead of the former steady flow of distribution there is a constant accretion.

Even on the export side there is the same activity in tea. It is stacked, eight and ten chests deep, amid a conglomeration of machinery, cutlery, and textiles. Exports are expanding in spite of the transport and other difficult ties. One steamer leaving this week for Australia has had to shut out more than 1,000 tons of cargo. Textiles bulk largely in these exports, but there are also many luxury articles.

Shipping men complain of continued docking delays, as lessening the utility of the Mercantile Marine and keeping up cargo rates. Railway wagons and sheets are still seriously short.