GOODS PILED UP IN STORES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25706, 19 January 1949, Page 4

GOODS PILED UP IN STORES

SHIPPING DELAYS IN AUCKLAND CONSIGNMENTS FOR SOUTHERN PORTS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, January 18. Goods for the South Island are piling up in Auckland warehouses and sheds after the reopening of factories and farily long delays are being met m obtaining shipping space. The reasons given for the delay in sending general cargoes for the south are port congestion, the long holiday period, the laying up of several coastal vessels for annual overhaul and survey the need to grant much of the available shipping space for the large amounts of sugar urgently required in the South Island. The accumulation of work during the now almost general “shut down” of businesses at Christmas and the New Year is also having its effect. In many cases seamen were given their annual holidays during the slackening of trade and their ships were paid off. Five Union Steam Ship Company coastal shins in .port are laid up for overhaul and survey or awaiting crews. Two more are awaiting discharging berths. One of these, the Kairanga, will pay off for overhaul and survey after discharging her Lyttelton cargo. The Karitane is expected to sail for Lyttelton, Dunedin and Bluff on Saturday, but her cargo is mainly restricted to sugar, feecause of the South Island shortage. Apart from colliers, the Karitane will be the first coastal ship to sail from Auckland for South Island ports since before Christmas. It is expected that when the ships laid up at Auckland are all recommissioned in the next few weeks, the accumulation of cargoes will be quickly cleared and that trade will soon return to normal.