WOOL FREIGHTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3615, 26 June 1923, Page 15

WOOL FREIGHTS.

A M ATTER OF INTEREST TO SHEEP FARM FRS. Recent reference has been made in the press to the important subject of wool freights, and in the last issue cf ‘‘Meat and 44 00l appears an article under the heading cf “44 T ool Transport,” apparently published under arrangement by G. 11. Scales and Co. (Ltd.). As ibis article is evidently written to attract the attention of the sheep-owners and is special pleading for one particular shipping interest, it is advisable that the general public should know more of the position from the liner shipping companies’ point of view. In the article referred to it is stated thne 'it stands to reason that when the Scales Lme fixes a rate as fair, the big shipping companies must charge the same rate or else explain themselves. Time after time reductions have been made through carrying out this policy.” The liner shipping companies readily admit. that they carry on their operations as a business, and, liko other business institutions, their operations over the whole year have to be taken into consideration, and as a natural sequence the results are a governing factor in fixing freight rates. To review the wool season that has just concluded:—ln September, 1922, the liner shipping companies fixed the rate for greasy woo! at |d per lb plus 10 per cent less 5 Per cent. Some time afterwards G. H. Scales (Ltd.), in announcing that their chartered steamer Rembridge would load in January, pointed out that the rate to be charged for greasy wool was |d per lb plus TO per cent, less 5 per cent. It is evident, therefore, that CL H. Scales (Ltd.) considered the shinping companies’ rate to lie a fair one, but in the course of loading the Rembridge it seems to have been realised that there was likely to be difficulty in filling the steamer, due to the fact that prices obtained at the early local sales induced growers to sell locally instead of consigning- -wool to the United Kingdom and .taking the risk of any rise or fall in the market. Sheep-owners in the main elected to sell at the local sales, consequently G. H. Scales (Ltd.) offered certain concessions to some woolbuyers, which concessions were promptly met by the shipping companies, who contend that the concessions given by G. 11. Scales (Ltd.) presumably were not for the purpose of benefiting the sheopfarmers of New Zealand, but in order to minimise the loss resulting if the Rembridge had to sail with empty space. The Scales Lina also loaded the Hannah under somewhat similar circumstances. The same article points out: “The Scales Company believes that with several ships every year instead of one or two still further checks can be kept on the rates.’’ It is apparently the idea of G. H. Scales and Co. (Ltd.), with extra capital to be derived from sheepfarmers, to charter, sav, six steamers next' season to further check the shipping companies’ rates of freight. The Scales Line charters steamers in the height of the season only when cargo is plentiful, but the shipping companies have to carry on the trade of the country during the slack season when cargo is the reverse of plentiful, and steamers frequently have to leave New Zealand with their meat and general cargo space half-empty. The shipping companies desire to emphasise the point that if the Seales Line really wishes to test what is a fair rate of freight, it should, in addition to loading steamers in the busy season. Toad one or two in the slack season, and it will then have a better idea of what constitutes a fair rate, and realise that profits made in summer can be seriously diminished by losses incurred in winter. There is no doubt that in many previous seasons the Scales Company made a firolit on its small capital derived from summer loading of the class of tonnage they operated, but the shipping companies venture, however, to express a doubt as to whether the loading of G. H. Scales (Ltd.) two chartered tramp steamers in the summer of the season just ended resulted in other than a los.. to that company, owing to the low rates of freight charged. Certainly this was the experience of the liner shipping companies. It is surely not consistent for sheepowners to support such competition as may result in loss in the carriage of Wool on the one hand and on the other for them to press for reductions in the freight of mutton and lamb, Advt.