DOMINION TE ADE

Southland Times, Issue 18964, 11 June 1923, Page 6

DOMINION TE ADE

METHOD OF COMPILING RETURNS. WORLD-WIDE PRACTICE ADOPTED. COASTWISE AND OVERSEAS TONNAGE (Special to the Times). WELLINGTON, June 9. A statement made at the meeting of the Central Progress League indicates that there is a move on foot to disturb the system of compiling statistics of the trade of the various ports of New Zealand. A review of the position is therefore timely. Although fairly comprehensive statistics as to the finances (liabilities, assets, revenue, expenditure, loans, etc. I of the various Harbour Bodrds of the Dominion have been regularly included for years past in the T.ocal Government Statistics and the Official Year-Book, no complete statistics of the work or trade of the various ports have hitherto been available. What has been shown under the ports or districts in the Trade Statistics has been merely the portion of the external trade of the Dominion handled at the various ports. This has, of course, obviously only covered a portion of the work of ports, since the coastal trade of the Dominion is considerable. By dealing only with the external trade, the smaller ports have been placed at an even greater disadvantage than the larger ports, as the great proportion of the vessels trading to and from the smaller ports is engaged in the coastal trade. The usefulness of a port, and the importance of the service rendered by it to the district, is not determined by the amount of its foreign trade, but by the amount of its total trade; it is just as necessary and valuable to the district to provide the facilities required for the Home coastal trade as for the foreign trade. The staple commodities forming the bulk of New Zealand's exports to other countries are drawn from all over the Dominion. Some are railed direct to the exporting port, and some are shipped per coastal vessel from their home port to the exporting port. In such cases the goods pass over two wharfs, but obviously the;,’ cannot be credited to both ports in the Trade Statistics, as this would mean duplication. The world wide practice in such cases is to show the export at the port on which the goods are put on board the exporting vessel, and this is the method now followed in New Zealand. In order to obtain statistics of the total trade of each port, a system of monthly returns from the various Port Authorities has been instituted, showing under some forty headings the quantity of goods handled, distinguishing inwards and outwards cargo, coastal and overseas, and transhipments, separately. The authority for the collection of port statistics is contained in regulations made by the Governor-General, under the Census and Statistics Act, 1910, and published in the New Zealand Gazette. Usually the returns are supplied/by the Harbour Board secretary, harbourmaster, wharfinger or other officials having access to the necessary shipping documents. Returns are required to reach the Government Statistician by the 15th of the month following that to which it relates. All quantities of the various items are required to be given in tons, and for this purpose a system of conversion of certain items on a uniform basis has been adopted. From the schedules supplied monthly, tables are prepared, showing cumulative totals of the total tonnage handled at each port. For 18 major ports also, tables are compiled, showing cumulative totals of the various items of cargo handled inwards and outwards. CHIEF PORTS AND THEIR FEATURES. At Auckland, the Harbour Board controls also the. Onehunga wharves; it also acts as the exporting port overseas for several smaller ports who send produce coastwise. The only sugar-refining factory in New Zealand is located there; raw sugar is imported from Fiji, refined, and then distributed coastwise throughout the Dominion. Consequently, sugar enters largely into the trade of the port. Of the total of 1,471,864 tons handled, last year, no less than 1,080, 087 tons, or approximately 75 per cent., were inwards cargo, represented mainly by coal, fruit, benzine, artificial manures, sugar, wheat and a large quantity of miscellaneous items, apart from staple lines. In the outward goods, sugar again looms large, as do also artificial manures. Butter is the main item exported overseas, 23,300 tons being shipped. Transhipments totalled 60,358 tons, butter, cheese, coal, cement, and benzine being the principal items affected.

Wellington is the principal transhipping port of the Dominion, having handled tjie huge amount of 330,000 tons in this way in 1922; coal from Westport and Greymouth, however, comprised two-thirds of that total. Other items largely dealt with as transhipments were cheese, 23,000 tons; benzine, 13,000; 4vool, 6,000; butter, 9,000; and fruit, 6,000 tons. Coal figures largely also in the inwards items, while the other items enumerated bulked largely in the outward goods. Lyttelton is the port of Christchurch. Inward cargoes comprised mainly coal, cement, benzine, manures, sugar and timber. The principal exports overseas are frozen mutton, wool, wheat and potatoes. This port is, in addition to coastal steamers, largely fed by rail connections. At Dunedin, eleven vessels entered in 1922. The inwards cargoes were mainly coal, benzine and sugar; a considerable quantity of hardwoods came from overseas. The principal outwards item was alcoholic liquors, aggregating 20,000 tons, all of which was shipped coastwise; the main overseas exports were frozen meat and wool.

New Plymouth ships goods coastwise and overseas. A good deal of the outward coastwise goods is, however, subsequently shipped overseas from Wellington. New Plymouth, which is the .port of the Dominion’s principal dairying district, itself ships outward more cheese (with the exception of Wellington! than any other port in the Dominion; It is well-known that a large quantity of the cheese shipped from Wellington has reached that port either by rail or coastal steamer from the Taranaki district. Butter shipped aggregated over 6,000 tons, half of which went directly on to the overseas vessel, and half of which went coastwise lo other ports. Coal is the chief item inwards, 25,000 tons being handled. Benzine and artificial manures arc other large items inwards.