DOMINION EXPORTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 706, 4 July 1929, Page 16

DOMINION EXPORTS

COMMERCE MEN ADDRESSED BY MR. TOOVEY

FACILITIES IN LONDON Stating that the principal object of his tour was to make better known the marketing and distributing facilities which the Port of London offered for Empire produce, Mr. T. R. Toovey, M.8.E., principal assistant to the general manager, the Port of London Authority, who is at present in Auckland, addressed the members of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce at the Strand Theatre yesterday. The Authority had observed the phenomenal development which had taken place in the exports from the Dominion during the past few years, Mr. Toovey said, and it was anxious that facilities should be available for any increased trade which might come in the future. The speaker sketched briefly the work and constitution of the authority. In modernising and extending the port more than £15,000,000 had been spent since 1909, and further works costing £3,000,000 were under construction or authorised. When the authority took office in 1909, Government statistics showed that the shipping of the port amounted to 38,510,989 net register tons, whereas in 1927 the total was 52,576,755 tons — a record in the 2,000 years’ history of London. In the 19th century came the trade with Australia and New Zealand, and he was proud to think that London had played no small part in the development of those lands. London’s shipping services were unrivalled. There were frequent sailings to and from London, and every port in the world where there was merchandise to be transported. A film depicting the activities cf the Port of London was screened.