SHIPPING FREIGHTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1925, Page 6

SHIPPING FREIGHTS.

We publish in our commercial columns to-day an article on the shipment of 'butter and meat to England that raises 'very important questions. It appears that by law the Dairy Board cannot make a -shipping contract without the consent of the Meat Board, and it is alleged that this provision is operating to the detriment of the dairying industry. It is stated that recently an English shipping firm made an advantageous offer to the Dairy Board of a special service of fast ships, which would have carried dairy produce only and lifted it regularly at the four principal ports. The Meat Board, it is said, refused to authorise this contract. Th" r?r lau.ult.:! ~l\"en of the insertion ;. ihe clause is that it was put in at the request of meat export firms who own or finance coastal freezing works and wish their meat to be picked up at the expense of the dairy industry. The question of concentration of produce at main ports or loading at subsidiary ports is involved. It has been calculated that the cost of loading a steamer of 7000 tons capacity on a 61-day round of the coast is £2 12/3 a ton, but that the cost is as low as 17/1 per ton if the ship vieits only the main ports. The cost is higher if cargo is concentrated by means of coastal ships. The shipping companies, it is said, base their freight charges for butter and cheese, which is generally loaded at main ports, not on these lower rates, but on the cost of sending a ship up and down the coast to lift meat at small ports. There may be another side to all this, but our article at least establishes a case for Inquiry. Seeing that dairy produce is more \ j.1v,?.' , . '.? l!:aa meat, it is curious that the Dairy Board in its shipping contracts should be subjected to the will of the Meat Board.