THE TRADE COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 238, 27 February 1913, Page 5

THE TRADE COMMISSION.

VARIOUS MATTERS. By Telegraph-I'ress Association Dunedin, East Night, sittings to-day. ommissiHn continued its Mr. ,T Blair Mason, engineer of the Otago Harbor Board, showed the Commission the condition of the Harbor, and out lined the improvements made, and to d the members that the Board eonld take into the harbor all vessels at present, trading to the Dominion. He could not state exactly what it would cost to deepen the channel to Port Chalmers to 40 feet, but he estimated it at £50.000. JHe Hoard had borrowed about £817.000 for works and paid on the average about <> per cent, interest. . The Hoard's endowments included about (500 acres in the city, and in years to come the ifoards income would be more than sufnclent to pay nil interest charges and provide a sinking fund to pay "off the loans .

Mr. J. \V. Hen toil (New Zealand Drug ( Company) presented a remit rif the Chamber of Commerce on the question of shipping subsidies, and rend the fob lowing: "Tlie question of finance U ;m all-important factor in dealing with this question, and it appears to lis-that' each ease of subsidy should be considered 011 its merits and dealt with by such an organisation as our Empire Development Department, and the cost of subsidy decided on and allocated between the ports of the Empire benefiting. The freight on goods from Hamburg to New Zealand, via London, is considerably less than from London to New Zealand. A direct specific case has been furnished where the freight from Hamburg is 2!)s fid per ton and from London direct 40s per ton. There exists a preferential duty of ten per cent, and the difference In favor of the Hamburg shipment represents 17Vs per cent, of dutv. Mr. Henton said he did not know how such a state of affairs as the variation in freights could be remedied, but he held it was the duty of the Government to see the matter was attended to when considering preferential tariffs. Mr. James Park (Park and Co.) said that German goods were as cheap as. British, even taking the tariff into consideration. ne thought that on the whole our own people were retaining the balance of trade, but there was always a demand in some lines for cheapness. His idea was that, the British ships kept the freights low for German goods, so that it would not be worth while for the Xord Deutscher Line to i send the vessels direct to New Zealand. Mr. Mark Cohen, editor of the Evening Star, gave evidence strongly in support of an "All-Red" cable,* allowing i code messages in all sections of cabletelegraphy and an all round reduction of rates. Nothing had been done in response to the representations of the Imperial Press Conference. Tt was a step in the right direction that the British Government bad decided to retain the right to control the rates in respect to I future landing agreements. The Atlantic cable owners got "id a word for j 3000 miles and the other 10,000 miles cost only 4d.