DIRECT TO MANCHESTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1745, 16 August 1905, Page 65

DIRECT TO MANCHESTER.

A NEW DISTRIBUTING CENTRE. * __ THE TRADE TO BE PUSHED. A cablegram from Sydney, published lasb week, stated that Air James S. McConechy, representative of the Manchester Ship Canal, had arrived in Sydney by the Essex, with a view to advancing the direct trade between the chief . colonial shipping centres and Manchester. It will be remembered that some five! or six weeks ago the Premier received a cable message from the president of the Lanai Board, stating that the first direct cargo of New Zealand produce had been landed at the Manchester; docks from the steamer Somerset. On making inquiries from the New, Zealand and South African Steamship) Company, it has been ascertained that that, steamer’s cargo for Manchester included over 6000 carcases of mutton andl lamb, loaded at Tiinaru, Lyttelton, Pioton, and Wellington, and the inducement that must have been offered to send such a quantity of meat on one bottom is evidence that there is a big market at Manchester for colonial products, that port being the distributing centre for the greater nart of the densely populated North of E-ngland.

That portion of the Somerset’s cargo was not, however, the first cargo of mutton for Manchester, as most of the New Zealand and African Company’s steamers have taken consignments, but prior to tiie Somerset’s last trip, the cargo for Manchester was discharged at Liverpool, ami nuti to be transported! eitUer by rail or canal. This was inevitable, as the steamers were unable to pass under the canal bridges, owing to the heigiit of their masts and funnels. For instance, the current freight rates per ton for oats is 2l>s to 2os, wheat 15s to 20s, meat and wool about 15s, yet to tranship such commodities from Liverpool to Manchester had cost an extra 15s per ton. In this strait, th£ New Zeaiand and South African Company—whose fleet of steamers are the only ones trading between New Zealand and the English west coast ports—deemed to inst masts and funnels that could he -shortened, with the result that most of tiie sc-tainem —me Ayrshire (which left Wellington a fewi days ago), Suffolk, Somerset, and others—are now able to steam up the canal to Manchester.

Mr MoConechy’s object in visiting the colonies is, first, to make the canal—which cost a fabulous sum—pay; to foster Manchester’s oversea trade, to that end; and, broadly, to see that colonial shippers do not lack the knowledge that there is a big market opening up at Manchester for the commodities the colonies produce, though at present in its babyhood, and to poims out the full possibilities that exist iff appreciating the advantages of direct trade with the big Lancashire city. Ajmong other advantages held out to shippers is the proximity of Manchester to the woollen-manufacturing cities of England—Bradford, Leeds, and other places in Yorkshire and Lancashire—which eat up the greater portion of our wool shipments, which hitherto have reached the mills of the north via London. It will most probably profit our producers and commercial men to listen attentively to what Mi* McConechy has to say.

He will arrive by the steamer Essex, due in Auckland on the 12th inst., ana Wellington on the 20th.