Necessity Of Containers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31333, 1 April 1967, Page 22

Necessity Of Containers

(N.Z. Free. Association) AUCKLAND, Mar. 30. A ship was a beautiful thing, but probably the most uneconomic package for goods that there was, Mr R. C. F. Savory, the chairman of the Auckland Harbour Board, said in Auckland today.

“It is the wrong shape for a start,” he said. “Then you have to lift something off the wharf, up and over the side and then down through a little hole into the ship.

“It is only in the latest ships, those built in the last two or three years, that they have started making bigger hatches and modernising hatch covers.” We must Improve and change our methods, Mr Savory added. “Successive governments and many people have tried to put a bit of sense into this, but the story is always that this is not the right time.

“It has been most difficult to get anything done,” Mr Savory told a meeting of the Optimists’ Club that, while trucking firms in the United States had been developing containers, the shipping companies had been spending time and money finding out reasons why they should not change from conventional methods of handling cargo.

“Important people here have been sitting on the fence while all the world is rushing to containers,” he said.

“New Zealand is very poorly served in the shipping world by men of high intelligence,” he said. “In Australia a tremendous job of research is being

done. The Government is putting the whip on all the people concerned in transport to see that something is done. “For their own survival British shipping companies are going to have to use containers,” said Mr Savory. “It makes me angry to see us just sitting down and doing nothing. Saving On Costs

“If, by using containers, we could halve the number of ships coming to New Zealand, it would be a tremendous saving in transport costs. It must reduce Costs by at least half, and then still further by reduced handling costs.

“I estimate that in three to five years we would only require s third of the num-

ber of ships if they were sll using containers. “People say that all cargo cannot be carried in containers, but the Matson Line carry 92 per cent of their cargo this way.” Mr Savery said that containers would alter the pattern of wharf labour. “The whole of the labour force, must be fully and sensibly employed,” he said. “Wharfies will naturally sit round and do nothing if they are not fully employed.” Mr Savory said that, although containers would reduce the need for waterfront labour, the total force required would be about the same ss men would be required for the initial packing of containers at the factories.