THE NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING COMPANY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 745, 11 June 1886, Page 20

THE NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING COMPANY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND M ML Sir,—The Directors of the New Zealand Shipping Company having made a further call of LI per share, the present time appears to me to be very suitable for shareholders to express their opinions concerning the management of the Company. The position the Company has now attained is such that no amount of publicity will do it any injury. On the contrary, it may have a tendency to do good, since I regard it a 3 the duty of those shareholders who have anything to say on the matter to openly express their opinions. The circular recently issued to shareholders asserts that the busineas of the Company is being conducted profitably. I should certainly not have thought so, seeing that the steamers are handled more like toy boats than the costly machines that they are. I will give you one or two instances. A steamer arrives at Port Chalmers, discharges mails, passengers, and perhaps cargo, then sails for Lyttelton, does the same there, returns to Port Chalmers, then comes back to Lyttelton ; that is, four ports with the business of two only to recoup for all the wear and tear and time lost in the operation. Only the other day we had a typical example of how things are managed ; the Kaikoura recently arrived at Port Chalmers, landed mails, and came on to Wellington, thence to Auckland ; returns to Wellington, discharges what cargo she has, proceeds to Lyttelton, and eventually she re-visits Wellington, as her final port of departure, on her homeward voyage. It will be seen from this that the Company do their own coasting, so that one would imagine they require to do very little transhipping, yet notwithstanding this, the managers of the Company enter into an absurd agreement with the Union S. S. Company not to carry passengers or cargo coastwise for hire, and to still farther accentuate their incapacity or inability to realise the importance and magnitude of the interests committed to their charge, they can carry coastwise a considerable percentage of passengers free. I, as a shareholder ’desire to state my opinion, which, I contend, is fully borne out by the foregoing statement—That the officers of the Company who have the management of its affairs can have neither the experience nor the knowledge necessary to enable them to conduct the business profitably, and the sooner the Directors realise the full meaning of this the better for all concerned. There are many other points of mismanagement as glaring aa those already noticed, but I

have said enough to lead shareholders to consider whether the present state ,pf affairs does not call for some special concerted action on their part. —I am, &c., Shareholder. Wellington, Bth June, 1886,