A STATEMENT RESENTED.

Evening Star, Issue 23129, 1 December 1938, Page 5

A STATEMENT RESENTED.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Kindly permit me space to enter an emphatic protest against aspersions cast on the members of my union, contained in the nineteenth annual report of the Otago Importers’ and Shippers’ Association. In its desire to advance the claims of Dunedin as a port of discharge it does not hesitate to cast unwarranted slurs on the character of the men who do the work on the wharves at Port Chalmers.

The association, in its report, says, inter alia: “In view of the substantial extra cost, and risk of damage, and, indeed, of pillage . . Statements such as these, coming from a supposedly responsible body, may be good arguments when applied as pressure to shipping companies with a view to inducing them to send their ships to Dunedin; but at the same time they constitute a grave reflection on the Port Chalmers men, and, as such, are keenly resented. The statement re extra cost, damage, and pillage contains the inference that the responsibility for these evils rests with the men, but anyone actually conversant with the woxik of handling cai’go knows that tlxis is Dot the case, and that there are one hundred and one reasons why costs and dama*ge losses increase for which no blame can be attached to the Port men. One of the biggest factors in increasing both costs and damages is that of over-stowing at the point of shipment. In the course of a year it would be no exaggeration to say that probably hundreds of tons of cargo consigned to other Dominion ports have to be lifted and restowed before local goods can be discharged. Apart from the cost involved in this proceeding, owing to the confined space this work is performed in, damage inevitably results. Pilfering may, and does, occur at any point between consignor and consignee. The fact that importers have watchmen in all holds continually watching their interests, and that there have been no prosecutions in connection with the union for a number of years past would suggest that the aspersions cast by the Importers’ and Shippers’ Association are both unwarranted and uncalled for as applied to Port Chalmers. —I am, etc., President (N.Z. Waterside Workers’ Union, Port Chalmers Branch). Port Chalmers, November 26.