Rangatira rates much higher

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33443, 26 January 1974, Page 2

Rangatira rates much higher

The Union Steam Ship Company admitted yesterday that inter-island freight charges had risen considerably more than 20 per cent.

The company agreed that the new charges for passenger vehicles had in some cases risen nearly 75 per cent. The over-all increase for passenger vehicles is $l2 a vehicle in the on-season, and $8 in the off-season.

The cost of shipping a small vehicle has risen from $15.50 to s27.so—up about 75 per cent —and for a large vehicle from $22.50 to $34.50 —up about 53 per cent. FARE CHANGES Passenger fares in the on[season have increased $2, [and in the off-season $i in isome cases. In other cases there is no increase. The Press Association reported from Wellington on Thursday that passenger and car freights on the Rangatira had increased 20 per cent. Yesterday Mrs C. Eddy, of Manchester Street, Christchurch, complained that the Union Company had told her that she would have to pay $27.50 instead of the pre-

vious price of $15.50 to get her car to Wellington. “Now I am going to Picton and will take it across from there,” she said. The manager of the company’s Christchurch office (Mr L. M. Fairweather) said the Press Association report printed in “The Press" yesterday was not the report his head office had released. He said the company had had to absorb the increases in the cost of trans-shipping vehicles. Last November the Price Tribunal had authorised an increase in passenger and freight rates sufficient to bring in an additional $500,000 a year. In Wellington last evening a spokesman for the Union Company said that no passenger holding a ticket would be turned off the Rangatira for refusing to pay an increase in fare. However, the company was “hopeful” that all passengers would appreciate the need for the increase and that the question of any refusal would not arise.