OVERSEAS SHIPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1940, Page 4

OVERSEAS SHIPPING

NEED OF CENTRALISED LOADING PLANS BEING DISCUSSED. MINISTER ON MEAT EXPORT POSITION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Because of the necessity for the most rapid turning-round of ships trading between the Dominion and the United Kingdom, a scheme for the centralisation of overseas shipping is being devised. The plans are so far in the early stage of development, and no details of the suggestions made or their adoption by the Government can be ascertained. “Obviously the reorganisation of shipping makes it imperative that there should not be an hour’s delay in unloading and loading in ports of the Dominion,” said the Minister of Marketing, Mr Nash, when he was asked yesterday if he could make any comment on the centralisation of shipping proposals. On present indications, the Dominion would get all the tonnage necessary to get its exportable materials away, said Mr Nash. It was not likely that any additional refrigerated tonnage would be available, but the tonnage to, carry the greater quantity of meat produced could be obtained by speeding up the voyages of the ships. All the frozen meat produced in the present production season, inclusive of any carry-over from previous seasons, would be shipped. The estimated production of frozen meat for the season was given by Mr Nash as 340,000 tons. Together with the carry-over of 45,000 tons, the total amount to be exported was 385,000 tons, or 85,000 tons in excess of the Quantity the United Kingdom had originally agreed to purchase. “And we expect to get it all away,’ Mr Nash added.