Inefficiency at Ports

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 9

Inefficiency at Ports

The deep concern of British shipping companies at the high cost of handling cargoes at New Zealand ports is mentioned by Sir James Gunson on his return from abroad. They consider the cost to be “out of all proportion to that ruling at ports in any other country.” Unfortunately the judgment is not an isolated one. It merely goes to confirm earlier statements by shipping and other authorities. Such a judgment should not be accepted passively. Apart from the reflection on national efficiency, waste on the waterfront in a country so largely dependent on sea-borne trade levies a tax on the whole community. Producers are handicapped in open competition and the cost of living is raised for everybody. Whatever the trouble on the waterfront, it cannot be allowed to persist. The causes should be subjected to complete and searching inquiry. Requests for such an inquiry have already been made by organised bodies of farmers and business men and also by the Auckland waterside workers. So far the Government has avoided giving a definite answer, but the issue is not one that, for its own and the country’s credit, it should continue to shelve. The questions of port organisation and cargo handling methods have been raised by the waterside workers themselves; on the other hand their labour efficiency has been sharply criticised by various interested bodies and persons. Both subjects might well be investigated in order to find out where the trouble lies and how improvements can be made. Indeed, the inquiry might proceed further, to discover how far costs are inflated by the many ports of call on the New Zealand coast included in the itineraries of overseas ships, and whether the concentration of loading at major pox'ts would yield worth-while savings. At the same time the loading schedules of the produce boards might profitably bear examination. In any case the Government should not allow to continue on the waterfront slack conditions that are gaining world-wide notoriety and injuring the Dominion’s reputation.