RAIL V. STEAMER

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 10

RAIL V. STEAMER

UNFAIRNESS ALLEGED

Mr. Ernest Davis, chairman of the Northern Steamship Co., Ltd., addressing shareholders yesterday, drew attention to "the most unfair competition the company was still meeting from the rate-cutting tactics of the Railway Department arid to the protection from such destructive competition which coastal shipping in Great Britain had received." He remarked that not only were railway freight charges, when the railways were in competition with shipping, reduced to a non-paying standard, but dairy companies were being faced with a threat that unless their product was carried by the railways they would be responsible for closing the line. This was notwithstanding the thousands of pounds m freight which dairy companies must sacrifice if they abandoned shipping services. "Surely the problems of the dairying industry today are severe enough without the imposition of this embarrassment," continued Mr. Davis. "The coastal services of New Zealand are entitled, as in England, to protection from complete annihilation and destruction. Since these services are not only an economic requirement, but a national necessity, it is the duty of the Government by legislation, to provide this protection."