Getting The Clip To Market.

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 42, 28 October 1927, Page 6

Getting The Clip To Market.

(By The Railway Department). Another wool-selling season will open shortly in New Zealand. Before the grower realizes overseas liners will be landing their quotas of buyers—buyers from Bradford, buyers from America, buyers from France, Germany and Japan. Credits will be established with the various banks wools will be minutely examined and values assessed. The auctioneer will mount the rostrum and an air of expectancy will pervade the tiered sale-room. And then: ‘Lot one, gentlemen—’ But before all this happens the grower has a decision to make—a decision that may mean all the difference between hitting or missing the top of the market. He has to choose whether rail or road will serve his best interests in getting his wool to store. Soon owners of road motortrucks will approach him with t apparently attractive propositions F to secure his wool freight. They K will offer to take his wool from rv shed to store without delays at very reasonable rates —anything, in fact, to beat the railways (of » which the grower himself is partv owner) for their legitimate traffic. Sometimes the grower’s first impulse is to clinch witfi the motor-truck owner. The muchemphasized possibility—after all, it is only a possibility—of “getting in finst with his clip” sounds tempting. But a moment’s thought will convince him that a

possible immediate gain is not worth the ultimate loss. Suppose all woolgrowers and other primary producers decided to send their products to market by road to get in first, while the loss in rail revenue would necessitate increased demands from the primary producer’s pockets, by way of taxation, to make up the deficit. In other words : Why pay a competitor to do you out of your business. After all the railway are the woolgrowers business They are built partly for his bene fit. The railways carry manures, agricultural machinery, livestock, grain, wire-netting and so on at cheap rates to help the man on the land. The road competitor will not carry these goods ; but he makes a big bid for the cream of the freight traffic, such as groceries, which he carries to country storekeepers, returning to town with wool, when he can secure a load. Thus, again, the woolgrower, having—through taxation —put money into the railways, has to pay rates to maintain his roads, which are being damaged by heavy motor-trucks. The latter pay practically nothing towards the upkeep and repair of roads, yet they compete with the railways, which wholly maintain their own track. But the peak point of this competition seems to have been reached. Growers of all primary produce are realizing more and more that they get a squarer deal from the railways. Letters received by the Department at the close of last season are eulogistic

of the way in which last season’s clip was handled on the line. Several woolgrowers who had had previous experience of the road-freighting of wool wrote to tell the Board that after using the railway again they had decided, because of its good service, to rail all future clips to market. Stock and station agents, wool and grain brokers have also expressed their strong preference for the delivery given by rail. Special arrangements are being put in hand by the department to handle next season’s wool and to ensure an ample supply of trucks, tarpaulin covers and lashings. Free assurance will be given with loading clips at all man-in-eharge stations, and loading, as heretofore, will be treated as urgent. No delays will be allowed to impede the progress of New Zealand’s golden fleece. The whole Dominion’s properly depends on marketing its products to the best advantage, and no-body knows it better than the Railway Administration. Woolgrowers are asked by the Department to use their own railways, It is to their profit. As the Department has made arrangements with motor-lorry owners for the transport of woolclips from clearing-sheds to railway, growers->~if not already approached on behalf of the De-partment-should consult the nea; j st stationmaster, who will be pleased to quote combined cartage and railway charges from sheds to stores, Woods’ Great. Peppermint Cure First aid for coughs, colds, influenza,

“Your question implies that you want a tailor to go round and measure each dog for his collar,” remarked Mr E. C. Levvey, i>.M„ in Gisborne the other day during the hearing of a claim in respect of 1500 dog collars, states the Poverty Bay Herald. Couisel for the defence was cross-examining a witness in regard to thespacing of the holes punched in collars.