THE SHIPPING HANDICAP

Evening Star, Issue 18230, 21 March 1923, Page 4

THE SHIPPING HANDICAP

SOLTI 1 ISLAND PAYS; NORTH ISLAND POCKETS PROFIT, [SrKCiAL to Tittc ‘Star.’] CHRISTCHURCH. -March 21. The ‘ Press’ editorially says: 11 The protest of the Dunedin Cham her of Commerce against the perpetuation of the South Island shipping handicap has our most hearty support. So far as Australia is concerned this island is much better off since the changes introduced by the Union Company towards the end of last year; but our isolation from San Francisco and Vancouver continues. AVe have still to piit up with dearer fruit, delayed mails, side tracking of tourists, and a very considerable, loss of our share of the Islands trade. It is many weeks now since a representative meeting in Christchurch passed resolutions of protest against paying our share of the Pacific subsidy without getting a direct share in the Pacific Trade; yet we go on paying, and tho North Island goes on pocketing the profits. A good deal of the responsibility for the present condition of affairs lies with tho South Island trades themselves, who have drifted far too inertly with the tide. The only way to effect a. change is to develop and give vigorous expression to a united South Island sentiment,”