Ships of Tomorrow

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 712, 11 July 1929, Page 8

Ships of Tomorrow

Will Auckland Become Free Port? EVEKY hour of the day and night a ship ties up at one or other of the Auckland wharves. Ships that pass. The wharves are never empty. • To vision Auckland as a port making no charges is to dream of the distant future, but rapid waterfront development and increasing Harbour Board revenue must lead ultimately to materially reduced shipping charges.

So far as facilities for handling ships and their cargoes are concerned, the port of Auckland has kept well ahead of progress within the province, and has always been ready to meet export and import requirements. Profit-making has not been one of the Harbour Board’s objectives, and a surplus of a few thousands —sometimes reduced to a few hundreds of pounds—is the most that is budgeted for in a turnover of something like £400,000. For the first nine months of the current financial year the revenue of the board was unexpectedly high, and reached nearly £B,OOO more than during the corresponding period of the previous year, and incidentally, nearly £B,OOO more than the board had estimated. Receipts are rising steadily every year, but are likely to ascend on a more steeply graded scale when the present long-term leases on reclaimed harbour land expire and are renewed at their present-day value. “PEPPER-CORN” RENTS A number of properties in Fort Street, Customs Street and Commerce Street, which originally formed part of the floor of the Waitemata Harbour, were, upon reclamation, leased for long terms at “pepper-corn,” or nominal rents, while others were contracted .for at exceptionally small figures. At that time the Provincial Government was the chief administrative authority in the colony, and the Harbour Board had not been instituted. The Government, therefore, collected premiums from the occupiers, and later, when the sections were vested in the Harbour Board, these premiums remained in the coffers of the State. Most of these low-rental leases will expire between 1940 and 1960, the first to run out being in 1933. All the sections upon which the “pepper-corn” rent of Is a year is being charged will be given up in 1959, having run their full course of 83 years. Rents will then, of course, be adjusted according to the commercial value of the properties today. In cases where leases were undertaken at figures that were considered reasonable business propositions at the time, the occupiers will find themselves paying something like ten times their present rental.

The Harbour Board is already committed to a wharf-building programme costing £5,500,000 and extending over 25 years, and it is reasonable to anticipate that much of the increased revenue from higher rents will be absorbed by capital and interest costs upon these works. Charges upon shipping and payments for rent are practically the only sources of revenue possessed by the board, and if the rigid sinking fund provision of the Local Government Loans Board —to extinguish the debt by its sinking fund within the term of the loan itself —are to be observed in the letter, it is hardly likely that Auckland will become a free port for a great many years to come. Reclamation is being undertaken in various places along the waterfront, and in a comparatively short time, these new-formed lands will be covered by business stores and warehouses, thus adding to the prosperity of the city and to the revenue of the Harbour Board. BENEFITS TO SHIPPING The future for the port of Auckland appears exceedingly bright. The distinction of being called a free port might never be achieved, but every addition to the working surplus in the board’s funds will bring it one degree closer to that point where port charges will be substantially reduced. Perhaps the greatest benefit which the port of Auckland has conferred upon shipping interests —greater possibly than moderately reduced berthage and handling costs —is found in the efficient facilities provided at the wharves for the rapid loading and unloading of vessels upon which there is a heavy berthage charge. In the past few years the time spent in handling a big overseas cargo steamer has been halved. To the company this advantage can hardly be illustrated in financial terms. The number of ships handled on the Auckland waterfront has not risen appreciably over the past couple of years, but ships have become larger and able to carry more goods, the beam has widened, requiring extra length on cranes, and other alterations' have been made which contribute to the general call upon the port authorities for service with speed and efficiency.