BLUFF SHIPPING CHARGES

Evening Star, Issue 15293, 19 September 1913, Page 4

BLUFF SHIPPING CHARGES

[Special to the Star.] INVERCARGILL, September 18. At a special meeting 0 f the Bluff Harbor Board to-day, held in connection with the proposed revision of shipping charges, a communication was read from the New Zealand Shipping Company, who stated that they had noticed that the question of again altering tho board’s tariff was to come before a meeting, and asked for reconsideration of their letter of January 20 last, in which they pointed out that the abolishing of tho maximum charge, would put a very heavy impost upon the larger steamers. Their experience since had proved, they sard, that the result was quite as burdensome as anticipated. To give an instance, the company paid the board Inst week, in connection with the steamer Rotorua, dues amounting to £524 8s 2d, including £23 16s 6cl for water supplied, and it would have been practically lost to the board had tho steamer not' como to the Bind. They did not know how their head office would arrange for lifting dairy produce during the coming season. Last season some 4,800 tons of cheese, divided into about 16 fortnightly shipments, went from the Bluff to London, and for which in most instances steamers came south. With the increased charges the largo time-tabled steamers of contracting linos had to beai in mind this year tho great inducement for vessels to lio idle in a central port while produce was being freighted up bj coastal -steamers. If the proposed altovatk>ns_ to the tariff were carried, intercolonial steamers would not only get a reduction in dues, but obtain increased dairy produce shipments. They hoped the board would that the, proportion oi their _ income derived from charges on shipping was an unusually large percentage of their total, as compared with othci ports. While that was so, an insufficiency of tonnage would make itself felt at the most distant ports from the central harbor, and more especially so if charges at these ports were unduly high in comparison. The board decided that the views oi the company would receive consideration before final action was taken.