THE CHANGE IN TRANSPORT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22344, 7 March 1938, Page 10

THE CHANGE IN TRANSPORT

Nelson Fruit Industry’s Problems COMPLICATED HARBOUR SITUATION (-rK.cm.LT WRITTEN XOR THE PRESS.) [By NEVILE BARKER.)

In a series of four articles Mr Barker will review, as a result of recent investigations, the transport position in Nelson, Marlborough, and the West Coast, with special reference to recent mergers of road transport companies.

Standing at the apex of a triangle ndth its baseline drawn between Christchurch and Greymouth, Nelson is the traffic hub of the northern sector of the island. The sinews of the city's strength are drawn from a populated fringe of coast reaching out along the main highway to Takaka and back into the extensive Waimea Plains, which project into the mountains up long valleys. Ringed around these fertile lands stand high hills, much of them wooded, carrying a few sheep but generally of low productive Value. The demands made on Nelson's transport system are exacting. Its chief industry is fruit farming, of which apple growing is the .principal branch, providing in one year as many as 1,000,000 cases tor export. The methods employed to transport the fruit from the orchard to the overseas boat can scarcelv be regarded as satisfactory. The large majority of orchards pcssess their own packing sheds ana an season these prepare from 50 to IZO cases a day. To secure a full loading the carrier may serve several orchards at the one time. Each persons fruit must be kept separate and within each group there ate further distinctions according to kind, grade, and size. At the inspection sheds, located on me whfTf at Mapua and Motueka, there nay be the utmost congestion. Each orchard’s fruit is inspected separately and kinds, grades, and sizes are stacked in special niles. A truck must therefore move from one point to another awaiting its turn at each stack, while if a case is rejected, thereby condemning a whole consignment, much time and many miles are wasted. A few years ago it was the practice for several orchardists to share a packing shed. From this full loads could be obtained for larger trucks with less confusion as to variety of kinds ana grades. and with less danger of rejection due to specialist packing and grading. At present a large motor-truck, with its lower costs of operation a case, is an economic impossibility and the small lorry, which, under existing arrangements caQ make no greater number of trips a day is an overhead cost which the province has to bear. These charges for transport wastage should properly be borne by the fruit industry alone, but actually are passed on in large measure to- transport operators. From Motucka and Mapua the fruit is shipped either direct to Wellington or to Nelson. In the holds of the vessels the eases are stacked together and may ’therefore need resorting at the time of transhipment, . , Small fruits, as strawberries and raspberries, demand almost instantaneous transport, for they must be marketed the same day as they are picked. Peaches, the most perishable of all products, must he canned within eight working hours of hoing taken off the trees. Tobacco, which is displacing «mall fruits and hops in favoured corners of good soil, can only be transported off the farm on moist days, otherwise the leaf crumbles to powder 5n transit. Lambs, pigs, and hops add their quotas to bills of lading and do bo chiefly between December and March, in which period the demand for transport is already overwhelmingly concentrated. Because the traffic is not spread evenly throughout the year, a large amount of surplus equipment must he held more or less idle Jn the slack months, and the opportunities for rationalisation are accordingly great. Motor Transport The supply of transport is provided by three main agencies. Of these motor transport is by far the most important. For this reason the Nelson area has always been regarded as one particularly difficult to control. Dependence on motor transport is so heavy that any maladjustment soon makes its presence felt. Interest to-day centres on the proposed merger discussed in a previous article. In its favour it is advanced that its operation would avoid mucm overlapping and wasted mileage. For instance, it has been calculated that one lorry making 60 trips a year could handle all the lamb and butter traffic between Murchison and Nelson. Moreover, in the near future the fruit traffic will undoubtedly change its direction of flow, travelling directly down the east coast in preference to going west and through the Alps via the Qtira tunnel. A three-hpur instead of a seven-hour road journey will be necessary when Blenheim is linked by rail. Carefully organised transport should result in fruit picked early in the afternoon being sold in the Christchurch saleyards the next morning. Co-ordinated transport could aid in the reticulation of the transport system of the province, especially if it is found advisable to concentrate export in one port rather than distribute it among three. One thing is certain: there can be no cheapening of freight costs until the distributive methods of the province lire reorganised.

takes punishment in proportion to its size. , . The second facility supplying transport in the Waimea County is an isolated section of railway running Ircm Nelson through Belgrove to Glenhope. The line has been laid with the purpose of fulfilling the political dream of joining the mam system at Inangahua Junction. Swerving inland, it makes no attempt to tap the rich-country towards Riwaka or to meet any possible demands of any future mineral development in the Takaka mountains. During the last financial year the line recorded a revenue £B6OO below operating cost. Nothing in the world can make this line pay, and it should be closed immediately. It is the home of obsolete equipment, runs only twice a week, and not even the Government makes any attempt to protect it from road competition. To think of extending it southwards is to contemplate transport suicide. The closure of this line would increase the responsibilities of motor transport, and thus the urgency of revising the weights which the different classes of road are permitted to carry. Ordinary main highways are classed third grade and allowed to take a gross load of 13| tons. If public money is invested, as it is being at present, in road improvement, the surest way of securing a return is by permitting larger trucks to operate over the roads, thereby reducing freight rates to consumers. Harbour Situation Within a circle of 30 miles diameter there are three harbours serving the Waimea fruit districts, Nelson, Mapua. and Motueka. This dispersion, besides involving higher freight charges, also results in the provision of inferior harbour facilities. If oceangoing vessels load at all in Nelson they do so early in their tour of the New Zealand coast, on account of the shallowness of the harbour. Fruit loaded direct is therefore carried in the, vessels’ refrigerators for three or four weeks. If the traffic could be concentrated in Nelson, besides saving some £40,000 a year in handling charges, it would become financially worth while to deepen the harbour. Vessels would take their apple loadings on board not long before they left New Zealand waters. The closure of the smaller ports cannot, however, be made the subject of a hasty decision. The question is inseparably connected with the reform of local government, for new harbour rates would almost certainly need to be struck, allowing for loan charges on the old as well as the new investments. Moreover, the whole system of fruit distribution would need to be overhauled. But it does 1 ehove those responsible for capital expenditure to stay their hands until the question has been gone into thoroughly. A loan of some £BOOO has been authorised to improve the Motueka harbour works, while a great deal of money is being spent on improving the present road between Nelson and Takaka. If the export traffic were concentrated in Nelson, neither of these would be proper avenues of expenditure, for a road avoiding the hills and shorter by some 12 miles would serve the fruit districts more adequately. The Cabinet has been petitioned to set up a Royal Commission to report on the transport situation in the Nelson Province. No region is more at the mercy of its transport system, and to gain the 'right perspective, the commission will need to inquire into every aspect of the province’s life. But the responsibilities of the province are heavy. Unless some Improvement is made in its distributive methods the unpalatable medicine of State coercion may be prescribed. If, as Ministers of the Crown have often repeated, private enterprise can Set its house in order, well and "ood, But if a single road organisation is created which cannot function, then approach by State officers is both direct and simple. And the demands made upon transport in Waimea are such as require a flexibility unknown in State enterprise anywhere in the world.

(To be Continued.)

As against, it is claimed that a merger on the proposed lines is wrong in principle. Only under a competitive system will proper service be given. If the proposal comes to anything then this indeed enjoins the licensing authority to be extremely thorough in his investigations and rigorous in the conditions upon which he grants licences, for where there is no competition the public is safeguarded through him alone. At present rates are fixed by operators and growers in conference and it is not likely, in view of a recent statement fey Mr Semple, that this practice will be discontinued. It is further stated that merging should not be compulsory and fruitgrowers have indicated the danger of a strike in the peak period of a perishable product. These are dangers any scheme of amalgamation must organise itself to avoid. Any amalgamation of this order faces some very real difficulties. Experience in other industries suggests that overcapitalisation is the most dangerous of all. It may be the general desire to offer good prices to those services which are to be absorbed. But dead horses have no pulling power, and there are too many of them on the roads as well as the railways in New Zealand. If the capital is written too high much of the savings (which are clearly possible) in operating charges will go to paying dividends or writing off goodwill which may vanish altogether in depression. Furthermore, the demand for transport is so exacting in Nelson* but so different, from (say) Blenheim, that its organisation must be excellent and flexible, combining local autonomy with centralised direction. That the operators should be the sole owners and thus appoint the directors has been decreed by the Minister for • Transport. This is very commendable, provided variety of methods is not allowed to mean various levels of efficiency. Its "co-operative” nature must be reduced to workable proportions, for an ill-organised busineM

[Owing to a typographical error in Mr Barker’s first article, which appeared in “The Press” of Saturday, part of a sentence referring to the Railway Department’s difficulties was not printed. The sentence should have read: “Furthermore, many a needlessly steep grade or acute bend—drags on every train and therefore drains on the public’s pocket—are the responsibilities of the Public Works Depart-