NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7292, 23 November 1910, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING

TEOM OUR BPECIAIi correspondentLONDON, October 7. Steamship companies engaged in trade with the Antipodes have mostly been doing well of recent times As an example, the New Zealand Shipping Company*s experience may be quoted, ine accounts for the year 1909-10, ]uet issued, show a disposable balance of as against .£43,722 for the previous twelve months. The larger figure is, too, arrived at aftef applying an extra JAO,OUO to the insurance fund. The result is seen in the distribution of a bonus ot 2s fid per share, in addition to the usual dividend of 10s per share* The company was organised at Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1873. Its progress has been coincident with the growth of the frozen meat trade of th© Dominion, in regard to which it has played the part of a pioneer. This industry, once established, has never looked back, and is in the main responsible for the ever-increasing fleet of fine steamers which now link up New Zealand with the Mother Country. It will always stand to the credit of the New Zealand Shipping Company that it was the first steamship enterprise to adopt for cargo-carrying purposes the principle of a combination of reciprocating engines and turbines. The Otaki, as this first vessel is named, represented a bold experiment, which was so successful that the of another and a larger steamer similarly engined was speedily resolved on. The company's fleet now numbers sixteen steamers, of which ten are twin-screw and two triple-screw. They represent' a total of about 120,900 tons. The Rotorua, the new 11,000-ton passenger steamer, with combination engines, leaves London on her maiden voyage to New Zealand on October 27th.