GOODS AT FOXTON

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 48, 26 January 1926, Page 9

GOODS AT FOXTON

QUESTION OF CHECKING. SOME UNTOWARD INCIDENTS. For some time past the Foxton Harbour Board has been requesting the Railway Department to provide men to check the transfer of goods from the ships or wharves to railway trucks in order that the board may secure a clean bill of clearance. At the monthly meeting yesterday the secretary drew attention to a claim from a local firm for loss sustained through some flour being damaged by water through a leakage in a tarpaulin drawn over the truck when the goods were loaded at Foxton by the Harbour Board’s staff. It was explained to the meeting that the tarpaulins were supplied by the department and that nine out of ten had been patched and were quite likely to leak slightly. The report of the board’s storeman expressed resentment at being made liable for what was deemed to be tlie department’s fault, and he stressed the fact that now, if ever, was the time to apply urgently for the appointment of checkers by the department. Letters from the department’s officers complained of the alleged lack of care of the board’s employees in loading goods on to railway trucks. One case cited was where two bags of flour were found short in a consignment for a Palmerston North grocery firm. Eventually one was picked up in the Palmerston North railway yard, having been jolted off in shunting, while the other could not be traced and the department had had to foot tlie bill. Again, five “fifties” and two “twenty-fives” of flour had been picked up on the line between Aslihurst and Whakarongo. On another occasion six bags of grass seed, which a board employee was certain had been loaded on to a truck, were ultimately found in the shed at the wharves. In reply, Air Hollien observed that often the department transhipped goods from one truck to another, causing a deal of confusion and delay. If the board were to blame about the dispatch of tlie grass seed tlie matter should be gone into, but ho did not think that it should be held responsible for the fate of consignments from Foxton, say, to Dannevirke. A departmental checker should be stationed at Foxton. Air Linklater understood that a checker was to have been appointed, but it appeared that nothing had been done.

.It was decided to defer the question of the claim in question and several others of a. like character until the annual meeting of the board next month.