ALLEGED FREIGHT BOYCOTT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3111, 9 February 1909, Page 5

ALLEGED FREIGHT BOYCOTT.

MR BUCHANAN'S COMPLAINT.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION.

By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, February 8.

At Masterton, on Saturdaj, Mr Buchanan, M.P., made some complaints regarding the attitude of the shipping companies on the shipment of wool, and to-day inquiries were made locally about the matter from the point of view of the shipping companies. It appears that s:>me time before it was known that M v G. H. Scales (shipping agent for the Freight Reduction Committee) had decided to carry with steamers, the Home trading shipping companies had decided to open the wool season with low freight rates. It is further stated that at the time the shipping companies indicated that rates would fall still lower as the season progressed. Last year the shipping companies carried wool at 9-16 d per lb. This season thi rate was 7-16 d at the opening of the season, and today it is only §d, a reduction which has been in operation since the middle of January. The Freight Reduction Committee's charge on its chartered steamers, it was pointed out, is 7-16 d, or id higher than the companies rates. "Most of the statements made by Mr Buchanan," another authority said, "are misleading. It should be remembered that the companies have to provide freight for the whole counthe year round, and frequently boats were lying idle for considerable periods. The steamers wnich have been chartered by the Freight Reduction Committee, it appears, are what is known as the Clan Line, and one of them, the Clan MacLaren, is at present in Wellington. It is complained in some quarters that these vessels are partly manne ( d by coloured labour, and, therefore, have an advantage over the companies which employ nothing but white labour.''