ANGLO-NEW ZEALAND TRADE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6362, 9 November 1907, Page 13

ANGLO-NEW ZEALAND TRADE

HRIT AIN’S “OR PAT NORTHWEST.” VAST CONSUMING CENTRES. HOW TO DEVELOP COMMERCE. (By J. Liddoll Kelly). MAN'CHESTER, S'-.domLer 10. After eh-d upon five mofitJw spent in tho Hi iii. ii Isles, wlie.n within a few daw of sailing for Nw Aeahuid in tho " IPodnral-1 loul ilor-Shi ro steamer (Vn-irwaU, I am in a position to sum np tho result of my olucrvatiojia and iuqtriricß, and In brine to a focus rny | conclusions as to tho possibilities _ cr j extend in e; direct trade between - ■ ll ■' Zealand and the West Const ports <>t Great Britain. Dnri.’if: my sojourn boro T have visited —spending usually from (me to two weeks in each plane 1,0, i d.m. 'Liverpool, MancUrotor, BmnmeJuiin, Bristol, Card.l! W»»w, I'dmbnrtrh, Oundee. Aberdeen, BubUn, nnd Belfast, besides numerous emoJlcr towns throijehout “tho fclirce kinpjdomn,” and in the course of my pon-m-inatkms I have mailed upon and had interviews with tho ermo and Wboirr anthoritim, and with scores of whoPraalo merchants engaged in trade trith Now Zealand, including tho chief branches of our produce. The work has been arduous, but ban been rendered pleasant bv the uniform courtesy and kindness wh> which I We ■everywhere boon received, awl by tho oarc?ol fcoKßiluiity cutemded to me stone in some tWrrro representiusr tho Uomir/ion of Now ZreiKnd. Tho obrnntej iuin boon most in.hmoitahlo, but all tho h:trd T felt Irvolir.od to writ* | about it !mvo boon eroded by tho genial I warm-heartodnowi ef the people. Although 1 could easily devote three' separate articleo to the subject, T find j rt mow convenient to deal in one ar-'j tide with Liverpool. Mancht«ier, and | Glasgow. as being the ports that jsorre \ <c tho Grout North-West” of Britain—the teeming hives of industry in Lancashfro, Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumbartonshire—and from which also our trade with Ireland canid best bo done. In tho districts served by these ports aro many millions of people who aro tho most virile and vigorous in Britain, who work strenuously, spend generously, and (ffpoaking generally) livo on a scale of rough plenty. They aro enormous consumers of meat, butter,' and choose; thoy take largo quantities of our wool, hemp, timber, etc.; yot tho anomaly remains that tho hulk of oror exports roaches them through London, with commissions and heavy railway rates added, when they could bo much moro economically • supplied by tho West Coast steamers. Tho reasons for this—if it bo correct to assign “reasons” for anything so irratio uat—will appear ns I proceed. At fi'rst blush the stupid conservatism of traders at this end scorns to bo the only explanation. LIVERPOOL, THE HAUGHTY. Lot mo begin by a few remarks upon tho harbour facilities at these throe North-Western ports. Liverpool is, to ray mind, the greatest and most

impressive port in the world. Unlovely and impictnresque as it . is, one >i but admire the magnificent * swoop on tho Mersey, and tho nino or ton miles of spacious and substantial docks along its banks, with every mechanical contrivance and railway facility to aid in tho discharge and despatch of cargoes. Tho overhead electrical railway running all the length of tho docks, with trains every fow minutes, is a striking feature here, l! n approached anywhere oleo, where progress along its banks is a painful and disagreeably slow process. The scone of busy Hfo on tho Mersey is a thing to bo remembered ; bo are tho scenes along tho harbonr front, where horses, tho finest, perhaps, in tho world, haul larger dray-loads than are hauled anywhere cloo. Business in Liverpool noemn more strenuous than in any other British city. _ Nowhere, at any rate in my experience, were public and business men more “pushed,” or moro often called away from a twenty mrantoa’ interview to carry on important conversations by telephone. But Liverpool has its disadvantages. The working of its port is absolutely dependent upon the tides; and when there in 'a bit of a wind and sea on it may take two hours, with the help of two or throe stoam~tngs. to got a steamer docked, after she may havo waited eight or ton hours in tho stream. I never o-ppre-ciated tho great advantages that New Zealand enjoys in her many splendid natural harbours nrtil I observed tho difficulties at the port of Liverpool, and learned that thorn is only ono harbour in tibo United Kingdom that can bo worked independently of tides. Liverpool has the further disadvantage of being a very ancient port, where, old and obsolete methods persist, and where tho different works are not correlated to each other. Tho methods of handling cargo are almost mediaeval in their crudeness. Even at such a now dock as tho Canada Dock, whore most of tho produce from Now Zealand is landed, the sheds are constructed on an old-fashioned principle, and tho landing of frown meat, as I observed it. is semi-barbarous. There is no oCiol or refrigerated transit shed provided. The carcases are siting from tho ■ ship on to the floor of an ordinary shod, with high, glass-covered roof. They arc dumped dovrn on straw, which X saw wot and dirty, end are roughly loaded by hand on to ordinary open lorries to be carted bo the refrigerating stores. The moot may lie for an hour or more, exposed to a hroiUnsK sum before H is loaded, or before the Tarries are ready to got away. Xn tho handling, many shank bon® are broken, and general deterioration rcHults Other produce fares better, hut in tho matter of moabihandliiig Liverpool has much to loam. Tt is the very, greatness and prosperity of Liverpool tlmt tirade her so indifferent to tho requirements of trade, ami so elow to adopt improved methods. The Dock and Harbour Trust takes very high ground. “There Is tho port, there are the facilities; we have more demand for them than ws cam supply.” ... Why not erect con! transit ' (iheds? "Oh, wo are a Trust; wo are not out for philanthrophy; lot those who want tho sheds provide them.” . . . Manchester Canal? “Wo are thankful for the Manchester Canal: it has relieved us of part of out growing traffic, and saved us expenditure that would havo been unremunerativo for years. It is a useful auxiliary;, bnt we don’t propose to compote with a M bankrupt concern 1” These people have plainly no time for little New Zealand

—uo idea whatever of doing anything to facilitate, or extend our trade with their port.

MANf'i! ■•STKII, THE “PUSHFUL.!’’ Munch tninr, sortie tHrtjr-six miler, inland bom Liverpool, is in many re sped;! the IU titlioris of the great ,wapert'. It ia nearly as undent a city, and has a prouder historic record; but it fa a new port, and a rival port; and in its external relations is disposed to fie much more generous Hud oor.sidoTJito than tho ‘'old-established ooroern.” The woll-umlcrMood difference between tlio ‘‘Liverpool gontloDian'’ and the “Manchester man” is oxomplifiod hi tbo general characteristics and attitude of tho two cities. The old harbour relics upon its pride of place, its traditions, and its connections: tho new one. pins its faith to its improved facilities and appliances, ite lower rates, its readiness to moot tho requirements of all its oversea customers. There are, perhaps, no bottnrr equipped docks in tho world than those of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Hero wo have many miles of deep-water quay frontage, nearly in tho centre of a largo and! flourishing city, tho docks Laid out on a coherent plan, according to tho most modern ideas, tho sheds similarly constructed ; many miles of railways intersecting the docks and connecting! with all tho main lines in Britain ; with locomotives and rolling stock provided by tho Canal Company; a great inland ochomo of water carriage provided by the River Invcll and tho Bridgewater Canal, graving docks, grain elevator, refrigerating stores, hydraulic and oloctric cranes. Everything, in fact, of tho newest and most approved typoTho latest sheds constructed aro models of perfection. They extend for half-a-milo in length, aro three-stories high, and are made entirely of ferroconcrete. Their cost was about £350,000. All along the length on both sides—making a mile in all— are covered ways, where goods can bo loaded into or unloaded from tracks and vessels with absolute protection from tho weather. This can bo done with equal facility from any of the three floors, or from tho roof, which is flat, and ia used for storing timber. In this enormous structure thoro is a lino cool transit shed for tho handling of frozen meat. Its principle is much tho same as that of tho shed I have described at Avonmouth, and carcases can bo landed from vessels and loaded into railway trucks with tho minimum of handling, with absolutely no exposure to tho weather and with the sorting out of different consignees’ lots conducted under tho best conditions. Tho pity of it is that thoy have so seldom an opportunity of handling New Zealand moat. Tho Manchester Ship Canal, besides being a triumph of engineering skill, is a monument to tho “pushfulness” and keen trading instincts, of tho people. It has proved of immense benefit to Manchester, and in fact to all tho inland towns of Lancashire and part of Yorkshire, by securing them reduced rates of carriage. Its advantage to Manchester is exemplified by the 'great growth of manufacturing industries on the banks of tho Canal and near the docks. The Trafford Park estate, just beyond the docks, which I visited, supply a ease in point. Nino or ten years ago this was a gentleman's park and grounds—a rural retreat beyond tho city boundary. Now the city has grown up has ovorleapt the canal and docks, and Trafford Park is now a scone of busy industry and life. Here tho Westinghouse Company has a factory employing some six thousand hands, and there are dozens of other works—flourmills, engineering works, carriage faotorios, etc., —'and a town on tho American plan with Ninth Street and Twen-ty-First Avenue, shops, hotels, and residential clubs all complete, with a lino of electric trams running through nnd around it. All goods to or from tho Trafford Park hktato the Ship Canal Company carries over its own railway lines to tho docks at tho nominal charge of sixpence per ton, so the growth of this new industrial centre, which has miles of frontage to the Canal, must go on. Factories are springing into existence on the opposite side of tho Canal, on land owned by tho Company; and the Canal, being now deepened to 2S feet along its entire course, it may be converted into seventy miles of quayage accommodation whenever the trade demands it. The abattoirs and meat market provided in Water Street by tho Corporation of Manchester aro "of most approved construction, "as aro also tho cold stores erected by tho Corporation in tho immediate vicinity. Manchester men are keen on business, and will moot New Zealand half way in any endeavour to establish a largo direct trade; but they arc keen enough to expect that there shall bo reciprocity in risk and possible sacrifice m connection with the extension of business. Manchester has established an enormous timber trade since tho Canal wao opened; sho has also risen, rapidly to the premier position in the banana trade, all showing what sho can do if sho has “a fair field and no favour.” Sho can provido over-sea goods to a population of some two millions at a lower rate than they can b© supplied from any other port. This population, as I have said, consists mainly of workers who largely 'consume meat, butter, choose, rabbits, etc. At present New Zealand produce is severely handicapped. Argentine meat and Canadian butter and cheese are poured into Liverpool, and from that port are speedily distributed. On tho other hand, quite throe-fifths of Now Zealand produce consumed in those districts is filtered through London. How to alter that state of tilings is the problem for New Zealand and Manchester to face.

• GLASGOW, rw GrBSMS. Glasgow, like Liverpool, has an imposing though unlovely and evil-smel-ling port, which is governed on much the same principles, and is subject to much the same disadvantages, as tho port on the Morsoy. Its docks, though easier of access than those of Liverpool, cjiji only be worked on tides. In structure of sheds, principle of appliances, and methods of handling goods, tho criticisms directed at Liverpool apply in varying degrees to Glasgow, i Frozen meat is treated in much the same haphazard style. There aro no cool transit sheds; tho carcases ar< dumped down, loaded on open drays and carted to refrigerating stores about a mile away. Tho Clyde Harbour Trust—in many respects a most enterprising and admirable body—cannot seo that it is any part of its business to cater for a small item in its import trade, when its hands aro full, attending to largo items, and more especially to tho more profitable export trade. If Harbour Trusts will not concern themselves with matters closely affecting the health and welfare of tho people, they must sooner or

later be abolished and their functions assumed by tho Municipal Corporation or tho district- Manchester, where tho control is chiefly municipal, is a shining example to such places as Glasgow, Liverpool, Cardiff, and oven London, of how port business should bo managed. Bristol Corporation, which controls tho docks there and at Avonmouth, is more enterprising still. Glasgow itself has a population, of over three-quarters of a million, and it is tho natural distributing centre for a largo and thickly populated industrial district, embracing a dozen or moro towns, whoso combined population amount to three-quarter of a million moro, so that there are a million and a half consumers within a abort radius of Glasgow docks. Tho workers ore mostly engaged in the coal, iron and fnanufacturing Sn districts; are large consumer.-: of foodstuffs; and as they make good wages, their spending power is considerable. Hero is a promising field, as yot practically untouched, for the disposal of New Zealand produce, and X found the Glasgow merchants eager and willing to do business, if advantageous trading relations could bo established. The Corporation meat and provision markets aro spacious and well-appointed, ampin refrigerating storage is provided by private enterprise; in short, everything is favourable to -a largo development of trade, if HOW TO DEVELOP TRADE. Thoro are several “if’s” that aro obstacles to tho rapid growth of a direct trade between New Zealand and the “Great North-West” of Britain. Obstacles are only made to bo overcome, however. Tho first and most seriouu, which can only bo demolished by slow degrees, is tho conservatism of traders, and tho difficulty of turning tho stream of commerce into now channels. Tho process of demolition has been begun, and it is largely a matter of time and patience to secure the disappearance of this hoarier. The slowness, and more especially tho irregularity of tho existing West Coast steamboat service aro everywhere matters of complaint. In Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, butter merchants find it more profitable to pay tho carriage of goods from London, in order to secure regularity of arrival. Market fluctuations make it too risky to get butter by tlie irregular West Coast steamers. The same objection does not apply to meat: yet such is the conservatism of traders that largo quantities of New Zealand frozen mutton and lamb reach the North-West by way of London. The representatives of one concern, having ita headquarters in London, toid me he would prefer to havo the frozen meat sent by direct shipment; bat his principals, though they would save hundreds of pounds a year by tho change, declined to alter thoir methods. . It is impossible to argue with people of this kind. No doubt; however, if a more rapid and regular service were provided to tho West Coast ports, they would avail themselves of ; it. These two barriers would therefore fall if the shipowners of their own volition, or under the stimulus of Got vemment subsidy, _ were, during the busy export season, to run steamers fortnightly from New Zealand and make their first port of call on this side alternatively Avonmouth (for Bristol) and Liverpool (with Manchester), A third obstacle to the opening of new markets is, curiously enough, the excellence of New Zealand produce, causing it to bo in keen competition and to command high prices. If Now Zealand had surplus products to | “dump,” sho might soon increase her trade by 50 per cent. But that is exactly what she has not got. Nearly all her products aro in such keen demand that they are sold at top prices before they leave her shores. There is a remarkable consensus of opinion among merchants of the Great NorthWest that if New Zealanders desire an extension of trade, they must forward goods on consignment, “New Zealand wants too much,” they say; “she does not loavo us a decent roargin.” ‘Wo,” I reply, ‘New Zealand has to sell at tho price you offer her; and if some of you arc foolish enough to offer more than tho state of the market warrants, that is not th© fault of our producers, who would b© fools to refuse cash down, when the price is satisfactory, and take tho risk of a falling market.” Tho more reasonable of them admit the force of this, but thoy retort that tho policy of straightout salo in New Zealand is a shortsighted one, and that in the long run the consignment system would pay the producers better. That may bo so; but X fail to see how consignment on commission is to take th© place of sale, so long as tho importers compete so keenly for the purchase of your products. Tho system in vogue is, nevertheless, a very real obstacle to tho rapid opening of now markets or the development of trade in now channels. To achieve these ends, two lines of ■action should bo pursued: (1) New Zealand must increase her ■production more rapidly and bo pre- 1 pared to sell her surplus at slightly lower prices or on the consignment principle, in order to obtain an entry into now markets dr to develop those with which a start has been made.

(2) New Zealand should give “bold advertisement” to her , products, tho excellence of which, though known to importers, is unknown to the great body‘of consumers. If Government shops for advertisement by demonstration aro objected to, then the meat companies and the dairy companies might combine to open retail establishments in all the large towns of the British North-West—not to compete a- low prices with retailers, but to create a demand that would compel these retailers to stock New Zealand goods, which end being achieved the shops could bo closed or the business i?old to local men. Another and perhaps more feasible than would be to subsidise a butcher and a grocer in each largo town to stock Now Zealand , goods and make “Now Zealand Proa prominent sign-board on his premises. In this way a demand would bo created that would compel importers to establish direct trade, and by a natural process the steamboat service would bo improved to keep pace with the trade. These, then, are the main conclusions to which X have come regarding the development of direct trade with tho West Coast ports of Britain. In addition to the foodstuffs named, a ►greatly increased trade could bo done with these ports in wool, timber*, hides and skins, wheat and oats, lard, etc., if, better facilities of transit were provided. Bristol and IManchcstter are tho two ports where the authorities are actively exerting themselves to encourage direct tradb with New Zealand ; and if there is reciprocal feeling in New Zealand, these. a»ro the places that should most speedily show a marked expansion in their trading relations with us.