SHIPPING SERVICES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3775, 20 July 1926, Page 61

SHIPPING SERVICES.

IGNORING THE SOUTH. WELLINGTON, July 16. When the House went into Committee early this afternoon on the general Estimates, Sir Joseph Ward brought up the question of more adequate shipping facilities for the South Island. There were votes for various shipping services on the Estimates, but every one of those services centred in the North Island. Not a single service that touched at the South Island conveying passengers and mails was subsidised by the country, which paid as a whole for the lines that were subsidised. He intended to bring this matter up from time to time during the session, and next session, also, if he were alive and well. In Dunedin some of the most important people had spoken to him about the absolute want of consideration shown to that city. In Christchurch every business man he had met complained in the same way. This ignoring of the requirements of the South Island should be fought by members of the South Island to bring it to an end. The Government, however, was sitting back and doing, nothing. He congratulated the Government on its large majority, but that was no reason why minorities in that House should not have the fullest attention given to their public requLements. It was not right that they should be ignored. Years and years ago, when he was a young man, he could re: member vessels coming to the South Island ports laden with passengers and immigrants. The Hon. Mr M’Leod: Did they receive subsidies? Sir Joseph Ward: The immigrants were immigrants in those days. Mr J. S. Dickson (jokingly): There’s only one port —Auckland. Sir Joseph Ward: The Aucklanders and the Wellington people would not stand such treatment for 24 hours. Yet the despatch of immigrants could be done more economically by landing them at Wellington and radiating them by rail. The people of Canterbury and Otago have to dip their hands into their pockets to provide money for the whole of the immigrants of the country. The Hon. Mr Nosworthy (Minister of Immigration) said that the immigrants were landed at Wellington and Auckland, and sent to their destinations without any charge to them. The matter was one of policy, and would have to be considered by the Government. He would go into the matter with his colleagues and see whether the South Island business warranted the doing of anything along the lines suggested by jthe member for Invercargill.