SHIPMENT OF PRODUCE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 253, 20 September 1930, Page 9

SHIPMENT OF PRODUCE.

POSITION AT WANGANUI. Per Press Association. NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 19. Mr James Hine, who for some months has been acting chairman of the Dairy Board, takes exception to a statement reported by the Press Association to have been made by the Minister of Agriculture in reply to a question from Mr J. T. Hogan, M.P., regarding a shipping company’s refusal to load certain dairy produce on the lonic at Wanganui. The report attributes to the chairman of the board a statement that it was not the board that was responsible, but the shipping company, which insisted on the conditions in the contract, one of which was that Wanganui should not be a port of loading. Mr Hine states that the Wanganui Harbour Board, which also controls the cold stores there, has been giving special inducements in order to divert certain dairy factories’ produce to Wanganui. As at the same time the board increased ships’ dues, the shipping companies naturally concluded they were not only being forced to contribute indirectly to the cost of this diversion, but were also in some cases incurring payments for coastal freight which would have been avoided had the produce been loaded at Wellington. They therefore insisted that under the new contract produce would onlv be accepted for shipments at Wanganui from those factories which had been shipping from' there prior to November 1, 1925, or produce from dairy factories erected in the vicinity of Wanganui singe'; that date.