MANCHESTER DIRECT

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 57, 8 March 1923, Page 8

MANCHESTER DIRECT

SOME BENEFITS EXPLAINED

AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT.

Captain William J. Wade, representative of the Manchester Ship Canal Company in Australia and New Zealand, is in. Wellington, on his way through the Dominion. He has come to show producers why it is to their advantage to direct shipments of their produce straight to Manchester. In the course of an interview given to "The Post," Captain Wade, who has had extensive nautical experience of the Australian trade in sail and steam, said there was a saving to the producer and a benefit to the consumer to be effected by consigning produce, no matter what it was, to Manchester direct. He said the canal ran right into the heart of a district with a. population of 2^ millions in the immediate vicinity of the Docks, and 13 millions in a hundred districts in the environs. It was the nearest point to the West Yorkshire woollen manufacturing districts; moreover, apart from wool, it served a great and growing- consumptive population for the disposal of meat, butter, cheese, and fruit. He had nothing to say against London as a port; but when one thought on the matter it could be seen that in diminished returns the producer had to pay the cost of 1 produce delivered at Manchester via London of some £2 per ton, not taking into account the loss arising from depreciation and handling and shrinkage of weight in .transport from the shipside in London to the destination of the produce in the Midlands.

For upwards of 15 years he had occupied the position of general superintendent of the Municipal Markets Department in the City of Manchester, and in that capacity had supervision of the municipal wholesale meat, fish, and poultry, fruit and produce markets, the city abattoirs, cold stores, and the fruit auction rooms, in which imported fruit, etc., is soldj he thus has an unrivalled knowledge of the marketing and distributing facilities of the Port of Manchester, and of the city and districts surrounding it.

' He was v then, not talking without knowledge of the market for New .Zealand produce in the territory served by the 'Manchester Canal and' Docks. As a < matter of fact 57 per cent, of the 'meat passing through the Manchester markets was imported. New Zealand should cer.tainly be well represented in that trade. The Canal Company, mainly a municipal enterprise, had avoided all the mistakes of older places in its establishment and equipment of handling and storage faoili- . ties. It had 84 miles of railways of its own; and ships loading or discharging in : Manchester were connected thereby with ■all the railway systems of' England and Scotland. At is was there was a regular service out of Manchester by steanv era running to Australia and New Zealand. This was so far as the carriage of textiles, machinery chemicals and other caTgo was concerned. What Manchester now wanted was a greater ■ proportion of the produce sent by New Zealand to Great Britain than it already handled. Of the advantages of direct shipment to that port there was no question. That was recognised by the high standing thai the port, once without connection with the sea, before the canal was made, bow .was among the great ports of Greai Britain in point of value and volume of ' imports an.d- exports.

: The importance of the Australian and New Zealand trade was recognised by 'the'canal, authorities in hie appointment to reside in Sydney so ac to be accessible to all producers who wished to know anything about the marketing and distributive and handling facilities of the Poii of Manchester.

The construction of the canal and docks at Manchester had for some year* past'been instrumental in bringing; down the port and railway charges of Liverpool on goods sent to in and out of the Midlands of whioh Manchester was now the centre. There was no modern loading or discharging device or plant designed to save the cost of handling produce, and to handle it so as to deliver it in the best of condition, that was not in use in Manchester. It was his mission to New Zealand to bring these important facts home to the New Zealand producer to the best of his ability.