THE P. AND O. COMPANY AND NEW ZEALAND.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 181, 5 December 1881, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE P. AND O. COMPANY AND NEW ZEALAND.

Considerable public interest has been excited by the rumour to which we alluded recently that the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Company were considering the adviaableness of extending their Australian steam service to New Zealand waters. We find on enquiry that the actual facts are at present somewhat as follows : — The Peninsular and Oriental Company, who it will be remembered, are the contractors for conveying the Suez mails to Australia, have a very large carrying trade in goods brought out for transhipment to the Union Company's steamers for New Zealand. It is a matter of great importance to New Zealand importers to get out certain classes of goods as early as j>ossible, and it is found convenient to have them sent by mail steamer to Melbourne as above, and thence forwarded to this colony by the next intercolonial boat. It appears that frequent complaints had been made lately by New Zealand merchants and 'importers ihafc their goods did not arrive with the despatch they had a right to expect. It was alleged that there was reason to believe that the goods arriving by mail steamer were not seldom left behind by the Union boats from Melbourne, precedence being accorded to freights from the latter place. These complaints reached the ears of the directors of the P. and 0. Company, and induced them to send an experienced travelling inspector to New Zealand with instructions to make full enquiries into the whole matter. That gentleman duly arrived, but in a very quiet, unostentatious way, and at once proceeded to make a searching investigation into the circumstances as reported. His mission seems also to have developed into a feeler as to whether the present coastal and intercolonial steam

service was satisfactory to the New Zealand public and sufficient • for their requirements. We believe the result of his expedition was to substantiate, at anyrate to some exbeab f the complaints as bo bhe delays in forwarding goods imported per Suez mail steamer. We believe also that he found a good deal of discontent existing in regard to the very high rates now charged by the steamers trading on this coast, and a general desire that these should be materially reduced. We suspect too, that he deemed the relations between the Union Steamship Company and the Orient Line somewhat too friendly to be altogether favorable to the interests of the P. and O. Company. However that may be, the upshot of the Inspector's visit appears to have been the initiation of a scheme for running the P. and O. boats in the intercolonial trade in competition with the Union Line. The plan proposed was, we understand, to utilise in this way the P. and O. steamers which will be thrown out of work by the Eome, Carthage, and other magnificent new vessels just built or building for the Suez mail service, to compete with the floating palaces of the Orient Line. The superseded steamers are very fine and fast vessels and of larger size than any hitherto employed in the Australia-New Zealand trade. They would have been able to enter the hatbora of Wellington, Lyttelton, and Auckland, bnt of course not Port Chalmers. Consequently the scheme seems to have been to connect with the P. and O. Line to Melbourne or Sydney a new service thence to Auckland, Wellington and Lyttelton and vice versa, at considerably reduced rates of charge. It is not yet definitely known what has been or is to be the outcome of all these inquiries and plans. Bumours are afloat that there have been negotiations between the P. and. O. and Union Companies for the latter to take over the disused mail steamers above referred bo, &nci place bhem in the Intercolonial trade, giving also greater despatch to the forwarding of goods ex Suez steamers. It is also hinted that the hasty journey Home of the Union Company's general manager, Mr. James Mills, to hurry on the completion of the large new steamers, Manapouri, Hauroto, and Wairarapa, now building for them, was due to the probability of the P. and O.s competition. — Wellington Post.