FULL CARGOES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 188, 7 May 1931, Page 8

FULL CARGOES

Big Wool Shipments

SPACE FOR EXPORTS

Full cargoes of produce for London have been the outstanding and the most satisfactory feature of the Dominion’s oversea trade In recent weeks. The present export season gives indications of being a record one in point of volume, though, of course, not in value, owing to the low prices ruling for the country's staple products. When the Mahia sails this evening the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, Ltd., will have dispatched three liners in as many days this week with completely full cargoes for London, the others being the Mahana, which sailed on Tuesday, and the Tamaroa, which left yesterday morning. The three ships are carrying between them 36,653 bales of wool, and ,799 bales of sheepskins.

The Mahana’s shipment of wool is one of the largest taken by a single vessel from the Dominion for some years, while the total carried by the three ships is a notable dispatch ’to be made by one company.

In addition to the wool the ships have on board over 56,000 boxes of butter and' nearly 28,000 crates of cheese, as well as large quantities of frozen meat, fruit and other cargo. At the present time twelve or more large oversea liners are loading at New Zealand ports and they will be dispatched for London this month with full cargoes. The provision of adequate tonnage to meet the great demand, for export cargo space has presented unusual difficulties this season owing to the great falling-off in the import trade of the Dominion. In normal years the ships of the companies in the New Zealand trade are assured of cargoes both outward and Homeward, but during the last six months or longer there has been a very great decline in the, volume of cargo to be brought to New Zealand. Thus, in order to provide sufficient shipping space for the export trade the companies have been compelled to bring ships out from England “in ballast” or. in other words, without vargo, while many others have only been partly loaded. Including those now on the way out, some twelve ships have left England in ballast this year, and at least three of them will have made two outward passages in this manner. This, of course, means greatly added expense to the shipping companies, for it costs practically as much for the running expenses of an empty ship as for a laden vessel which is “earning her keep.”

The shipments are as follow: — Mahana ....... Wool bales. 18,457 Sheepskin bales. 171 Tamaroa 5,519 14,677 186 Mahia 442 Total 36,653 799