IS WANGANUI POACHING?

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 125, 23 November 1926, Page 11

IS WANGANUI POACHING?

The Importers' Committee of the Napier Chamber of • Commerce complains that the port of Wanganui—owing to having the advantage of a "regular, scheduled service" of coastal steamers, with definite ports of call and sailing dates, including ports like Dunedin, Timaru, Oumaru, and Lyttelton—is profiting in trado at tho expense of Napier. Wanganui is said to bo magnetising hinterland trade quite far afield. Tho committee reports that "buyers along the line prefer Wanganui, as they know exactly when they cau get the goods. In Hawkes Bay, via Napier, you are lucky if you can guess the arrival within a week. Repeatedly the Union Company advises a boat loading at Dunedin, say, on tho 10th, but we have never seen the boat actually in Napier on the proposed sailing date. Moreover) when Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, and Lyttelton are scheduled, it is often found necessary to cut out a port at the last moment. This is entirely unsatisfactory. If a boat is scheduled for Timaru and, say, potatoes are cheaper at that port, buyers order from there and when their port is cut out after being advertised obviously buyers are left lamenting. If a boat is scheduled to call at a port, she should do so, otherwise merchants do not know whore they are. Tho system is so chaotic and disastrous to Hawkes Bay trading generally, that we go so far as to say that a deputation should go to Wellington, or that Mr. Falla (general traffic manager for tho Union Company) should come up hero again. "The chamber decided that other chambers interested be written to asking for co-opera-tion, .and that, failing such co-opcratlon, the matter be left in the hands of the Importers Committee, with power to act."