DIRECT SHIPMENTS.

Southland Times, Issue 19508, 6 May 1922, Page 4

DIRECT SHIPMENTS.

The Chamber of Commerce is doing excellent work in fighting quietly and persistently for direct shipments to the Bluff. This is a matter of vital importance to the whole community, and it is a matter in which assuredly nothing will be done if the traders of the district are content to sit still and keep silent under present conditions. Of the imports of the district only a small proportion is brought to the Bluff in the ship in which they leave the country of export. We get nearly all our imports by transhipment, and most of them make the last stage of the journey by rail. Our imports go to swell the trade figures of other’ harbours and provinces. As a consequence the trade of Southland is shown incorrectly in the statistics, to the prejudice of our standing among the provinces of the dominion; but, worse than that, the charges are piled up on our imports to the disadvantage of the Southland trader and consumer. The Chamber of Commerce should have the hearty support of the whole trading community. It is for buyers to stipulate in every case for direct shipment to Bluff, and to give preference to selling firms which will take some trouble to endeavour to meet their wishes. In this respect every importer can act individually, but individual action must be backed by joint action, and the revival of the Importers’ Association, which formerly did excellent work in securing direct shipments, would be of material assistance to the Chamber of Commerce. Southland’s imports for each twelve months attain large dimensions in terms of freight tons, and it is not a question of creating new business. The business is there; it is being done now. There is ample cargo to warrant a direct steamer coming to the Bluff six or eight times a year, and all that is needed is organisation of the trade so as to ensure the shipment of Southland’s goods in large quantities at the other end. At present they come in in dribs and drabs, and rarely does any single steamer carry enough to make a visit to the Bluff necessary or justifiable. In such circumstances the importers must do something to help themselves, and while they are strongly represented in the Chamber of Commerce they would be able to work even more effectively through an organisation of their own. “Southland’s business for Southland,” is a motto worth fighting for. We should get our imports through our own port, but we shall never attain that object so long as we are content merely to order our requirements and to leave the shipping arrangements in the hands of the people at the other end. Organisation and agitation are needed at this end, and a vigorous and aggressive Importers’ Association would be of great assistance to the Chamber of Commerce.