LABOUR AT PORTS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19819, 6 January 1930, Page 9

LABOUR AT PORTS.

BRITISH COMMISSION'S ENQUIRIES. (sxixisa ojpiciai. wibbmbss.) RUGBY, January 3. At the request of the Minister for Labour, a committee under the chairmanship of Sir Donald Maclean are engaged in enquiries in connexion with the problem of port labour. These enquiries have as their object the coordination and extension of registration schemes and other measures for decasualising port labour. The committee have already issued two interim reports and have also communicated with ports, urging the adoption of certain measures.

MODERN METHODS FOR HANDLING CARGO.

(UJHTED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BY ELECTBIC TELEGBAPH —COPYRIGHT.)

MELBOURNE, January 4.

Captain Van der Laan, master of the Holland-Australia steamer Aldebaran, which arrived from Rotterdam, discussed the very modern methods in operation at Rotterdam for loading and unloading ships. He said that for moving coal they had huge iron grips, electrically driven, and capable of lifting fifteen tons each grip. Eleven thousand tons of coal were discharged from his ship in 24 hours before coming to Australia.

On another occasion, 11,000 tons of bulk wheat were discharged in 20 hours. Grain was discharged by floating elevators, which sucked it out of holds into lighters. His ship this trip brought 4500 tons of British coal to Adelaide. There the unloading process provided a sharp contrast to that in use in the Continental port, the work occupying six days in Australia.