PRIORITIES IN SHIPPING

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26396, 14 April 1951, Page 6

PRIORITIES IN SHIPPING

SPECIAL MEETING OF COMMITTEE determining - ESSENTIAL GOODS

After hearing the proposals of the new Shipping Priority Committee at a special meeting yesterday, the Christchurch Emergency Supplies Committee considered that the allocation for outward loading from Lyttelton was inadequate and it will probably make general representations tor an increase.

The committee is now being inundated with applications for priority in the dispatch by sea of goods claimed to be urgently needed elsewhere. The Mayor (Mr R. M. Macfarlane, M.P.) said yesterday that determination of essential commodities was becoming increasingly difficult. There wais a range of goods, generally recognised as essential, which must be shipped. Strong claims had been entered for other priorities. The committee had a list of 99 to 100 applications for shipment, many of which were claimed to be necessary to employment in the North Island. The possibility of unemployment in Christchurch and elsewhere had been brought home forcibly to the committee this week, Mr Macfarlane said; but it must be realised that in the present emergency the committee’s responsibility primarily concerned sustenance rather than employment. In the meantime the committee had set up a special sub-committee to consider shipping priorities and the next move would denend on its findings. No general dismissals of staff nave been reported in Christchurch. In some cases casual labour has been paid off earlier than expected in a busy season because goods cannot be shipped. This applies, for instance, to wool stores. Delayed arrival of raw materials is beginning to worry many manufacturers; but storage is at present their chief problem. Production has been curtailed in some places but all staff has been retained because employers, normally facing keen competition, fear difficulty in re-engaging trained operators when the present trouble is over.