SHIPPING FREIGHTS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 April 1929, Page 3

SHIPPING FREIGHTS

FLAT RATE QUESTION. “LLOYD’S LIST” VIEW. A good deal of attention has neon paid by London shipping journals to the resolution carried by the Wellington Harbour Board some months ago reaffirming its protest, against the flat rate of freight charged • on overseas cargoes, irrespective'of .the port •of shipment, in the Dominion. 7 . Extracts from the report of. the discussion-an.l the board’s resolution were reprinted in “Syren and Shipping” and “Lloyd's List” of. January 29 has a leading article' oil' the subject. ■ After quoting figures, relating to tlie time, spent by overseas ships on the New Zealand coast, “Lloyd’s List” reirihrks that “the attitude of the Wellington Harbour Board is easy to understand. The board, it is contended, has provided cheap and up-to-date port facilities, which might be made still cheaper were fuller use made oT them.' The bar to fuller use is the readiness of -the 'shipping companies to collect cargo at almost any. cove or t inlet'that seems desirable'to exporters, -and this, although the cost ol receiving cargo—rising, according to the Wellington report, as high as £9 16s lid, a ton, as against 7s 1 Id, ai Wellington—makes great inroads in to the freight received, which is tlio same whether the facilities at the poit of loading are advanced or primitive, . Not only are efficient ports thus deprived of trade, but, it is contend-, ed, expenditure on uneconomic harprojects is encouraged. “Last September the Minister (;f Public Works stated that from 1924 to 1927 the loan indebtedness of the harbour authorities of New Zealand had increased by £2,500,000, of wli'di £1,500,000 had been spent by subsidiary ports. ’Hie port problem is scarcely one which the shipping companies can be expected to solve. I hey are always subjected to a great deal of criticism —much of it unfair—from shippers in the Dominions, and thenanxiety to do everything possible to servfe tiie convenience of their customers is natural. It is rather for the New Zealand Government and producers in conjunction to decide whether, -ft system of .freight charging which, lifts the effect of utilising, valuabl8 < 'ships as warehouses during the many-weeks of their stay on the New Zealand coast is in the best interests of flic . trade of the Dominion.”