SHIPPING FREIGHTS

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 194, 15 July 1930, Page 2

SHIPPING FREIGHTS

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, July 14. The chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, Mr David Jones, M.P. for Mid-Canterbury, arrived at Auckland on the Niagara, having returned from- a visit to Great Britain on business connected with the operations of the board. He left New Zealand on the Rangvtane at the beginning of March. After spending two months in Britain negotiating a new shipping freight contract and investigating the conditions of the sale of Dominion meat, he camo home via Canada and the United States, spending, a fortnight in the latter country. The existing freight contract will expire in October, and its renewal on the most favourable terms obtainable was the principal object of his trip. Mr Jones said that the three shipping companies concerned were the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, the New Zealand Shipping Company, and the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company. The expiring contract had been in force for three years. Under its terms the freight rates had been reduced 10 per cent from tlio previous level, and in the final year there had been a further reduction of five per cent. A new contract covering the next three years had been made at a reduction of 2,j por cent from the rates now ruling. The big drop in the volume of imports to Australia and New _ Zealand had made the question of freight reduction a thorny one to handle. The fact that a considerable number of vessels were having to come in ballast had, an important bearing on the question of the freight on our exports.