Trade with Westland.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17939, 6 December 1923, Page 8

Trade with Westland.

We print to-day some particulars of the amount of timber shipped from Greymouth, which appear to give little support to the suggestion that the opening of the Otira tunnel has seriously damaged the Westland port. There has been a considerable falling off in the amount of timber for Canterbury which has passed over the Greymouth wharves since the tunnel was opened, but this was as much to be expected as a falling off in the number of people travelling from Arthur's Pass to Otira by road s and nobody in his senses will suggest €hat the railing of timber to Canterbury can be a bad thing for anybody. Our Hokitika correspondent sends us to-day an account of the attitude of the Hokitika people towards the Greymouth opposition to the fixing of back-loading freights on merchandise railed from Canterbury to Westland. Mr Steer, the chairman of the Greymouth Harbour Board, in Tiis recent remarks upon articles in "The "Press," ascribed Hokitika's support of our views to Hokitika's narrow jealousy of Greymouth. This unfriendly criticism has apparently not aroused ill-feeling in the southern town, which is not jealous of Greymouth, but rather indifferent to 'it, although Hokitika people are quite ready to give Greymouth a helping hand when it is desired. Before the tunnel was opened Greymouth enjoyed advantages over Hokitika, and the railway has in some respects meant a considerable saving to Hokitika importers, and has reduced the advantage enjoyed by Greymouth importers. The main consideration is that "VVestland should be able to obtain its supplies as cheaply as possible, and this end, as it happens, can best be achieved through that freight policy which will be most beneficial to the "Railway Department. At the present time the Minister of Railways is still engaged upon his general investigation of the railway system, and will probably be unwilling to take up the freights question until he settles down in his office again. We hope that the matter will then be vigorously pressed upon his attention, and in the meantime the opening of the Hokitika Exhibition will afford an excellent opportunity for a free discussion of all the points of view which have emerged since we took up the question.