PORT OF FOXTON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2368, 15 December 1921, Page 2

PORT OF FOXTON.

COMPLAINTS BY MERCHANTS,

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

APPROACHED.

At Monday’s meeting of the Palmerston Chamber of Commerce, Mr 11. F. Wilson, managing director of Messrs Manson and Barr, Ltd., wrote enclosing correspondence relating to the Wellington-Foxton steamship service. “We have endeavoured, as far as possible,” wrote Air Wilson, “to use the steamer, but we find it does not pay us to do so, in almost every way.”

Mr Wilson quoted extracts from letters his firm had received from their Wellington agents, one of which reads as follows: “The Kennedy is not employed solely in the Foxton trade. She has made two trips to Wanganui, and several to Lyttelton in the past month when Foxton cargo has been offering. Only last trip she went away to Foxton with a half load, owing to the state of the bar, and left a hundred tons behind, this having accumulated through her making trips to other ports for bigger freights. We have had eight tons of kerosene waiting for shipment for 22 days, which gives you an example of the efficiency of the service.” Under another date the firm’s Wellington agents wrote: “We would ask you to advise your clients to have cement railed instead of shipped via Foxlon, as it is very hard to get a boat, and consequently we are left, with all broken bags: whereas if we railed them we could ensure you getting full bags, and the broken ones would be left for the stores at Wellington, which could dispose of them more easily.”

“We find, wrote Mr Wilson, “that these remarks are quite in accord with our own opinion, the main trouble being that the delay waiting for the ship at Wellington causes extra expense, which, in any case, precludes any saving through shipment via Foxton over rail.”

The Chairman (Mr H. L. Young) stated that had the financial stringency not come about a steamer would have been on the WellingtonFoxton service. It was a matter over which they did not seem to have much control. Mr J. Aitchison said that the trouble was that there was not enough back cargo offering.

Mr -J. A. Nash, M.P., said that there was a possibility of the company getting a hull from the Old Country at a cheap rate, and fixing it up in the Dominion. In any case if the Minister canned out what he (the Minister) thought he could do now they would have a boat on the Foxton service very soon. It was decided to thank Messrs Manson and Barr, Ltd., for the interest they had taken in the matter, and to inform them that efforts were still being made to secure a suitable steamer. —Standard.