The Daily News, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1903, NEW PLYMOUTH TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 17, 21 January 1903, Page 2

The Daily News, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1903, NEW PLYMOUTH TRADE.

It rests largely with tbe people of New Plymouth wheth r th«y mak<j the harbour at th i breakwater a great commercial centre or merely a port of call for shipping companies that are fattening ou the trade of Taranaki. Wo have sove-al times pointed ou"; the advisability of a shipping company be'ng formed here and owning s venl steamers',, so th*t the trede cf such ports as Kawhia, Raglan, Opunake, atd Patea can be drawn hcr.>, and imports for these ports distributed from here. By our telegrams it will ba seen tb.it Wellington is making a determine! i ffort to seize this trade, and a vessel is shortly to be laid on to run between Wellington and Raglan, calling at New Plymouth and other intermediate ports. There is no reason why New Plymouth merchants should not aectre this trade. Of course there are those who wll urge a wai-ing policy, but while we ate waiting tbe trade is being tiken elsewhere, and it will be exceedingly hard to get it back again. Became we c-n not s'art in a big way is no reason for delay. Tho writer well remembe-s the arrival of the first vessel cf the Union Steam Shipping Company in New Zeahiid. This sp'endid company was started by a handful of far-seeiug men in Dunedin, and the gensr.l opinion wss that they were mad to enter into competition with the splendid line of intercolonial strainers owned and run by Messrs McMeekan, Blackwood and Company. These sp'eudid steamers had a monopoly of the tiade between N*w Zetland ami Australia, and divided the co sal trade with the New Zealand Shipping Company, just as the Union and Northern Company do now. The Union Company started with the Taupo and Hawera, and so well were, the public treated that they not only beld their own bu 1 ; have ac'ually 8 vallowed up the two companies referred to, and now have a fleet of steamers equ.l to anything in any pirt of tbe 'world. New Plymouth is in a position to nurse the trade of the ports rtfemd to until such time as the breakwater, can accommodate direct steamers, when the possession of several coastal steamers concentrating the trade of th 11 dis'rut for a hundred miles north and 8 mth of New Plymouth will be of inciil'.ulable benefit, and indeed be an additional inducement to such steamer* to call here. If the people of Taranaki pull together, and pull with a will, there should be little difficulty in financing the extension of the breakwater, without in any way increasing the burdens of the ratepayers, but it is little good bringing steamers here if i Wellington and Auckiand-bound bottg* have secured all the trade. We think it our duty to warn the psoplo of this district, to whom direct shipment of thsir produce to the Home markets means many thousands of pounds actuil gain, that every effort will be made to block the extension of the Harbour, and to rob it cf the trade so n'cessAiy to its success". Taranaki dairy farmers have led the c.;lony in the production of dairy produce. They have been the first to erect co-operative freezing works, and if they are wise they wi'l have their own port of sh'praent, so that thf y can control the handling of the : r p-oduce until it is in the fre zing chamber of the direct B'eanier.