Grain price hits ships

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 13

Grain price hits ships

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND.

All Northern Steam Ship Company coastal vessels face indefinite redundancy because, the line says, it seems to have been caught in the backlash of the Governernment’s grain - price policy.

Two of the remaining three coasters have been laid up at Auckland and put up for sale, and there is no employment yet for the third, which is due at Auckland for a survey within a few days. Company officials met maritime union representatives at Auckland on Friday to discuss redundancy. The managing director (Mr I. C. Skudder) said today that the line’s future depended on how much, if any, employment would be available for the ships in January once the South Island grain was harvested. All three ships had been engaged in bulk-grain trades,

and the immediate prospects for coastal grain cargoes were not good, he said. Should the line decide to sell all three ships, alternative arrangements would have to be made to bring grain cargoes to the North Island. The Union Steam Ship Company is the only line with suitable ships, but it might not be interested. Mr Skudder said the fate of the other two ships should be decided within a week. The Northern Steam Ship Company, one of the oldest local snipping lines, was founded in 1881, and helped to open up much of the North Island for farming and commerce before roads and railways were built. During the last 10 years it has concentrated on bulk grain trades from the South Island, and this year, because of the shortfall in the South Island harvest, sent its ships to Australia to load feed grain. Mr Skudder said this trade would not exist next year because New Zealand planned to be self-sufficient in stockfeed grains.

The three ships of the company are the 595-ton Moanui, the 759-ton Tainui 11, and the 768-ton Dido.

The Dido is the only one now in service and will be withdrawn next week.