SHIPPING TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 20524, 28 June 1928, Page 8

SHIPPING TRADE

AUSTRALIAN SERVICE STATEMENT BY UNION COMPANY THE POSITION REVIEWED It willAe recollected that the Southland League and the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce recently protested to the Prime Minister at the action of the Union Steam Ship Company in replacing the Manuka with a cargo steamer. The Union Company has now made a statement regarding the South Island-Melbourne service, a copy of which statement was yesterday handed to the Southland Times. The statement which sets out at length the position of this trade in comparison with the pre-war service, and as it at present is, commences with the following summary:— Before the War the service was weekly. Passenger traffic had already decreased relatively to less than half the WellingtonSydney traffic on account of: —Milder weather conditions on the northern route; the growing importance of Wellington as a radiating point; except from the South, the shorter time taken to go to Melbourne via Sydney; closer relations with Sydney than with Melbourne. Melbourne-Hobart traffic formed a considerable part of the earnings, without which the inevitable reduction of the service must have occurred much earlier.

At present the service is three-weekly. Owing to the Australian Navigation Act, etc., the Melbourne-Hobart trade cannot be recovered. The tendency is for passengers to travel by the largest steamers between the most important terminals, using land facilities for interior travel. Cargo has fallen off owing to:—Decline of agriculture in New Zealand; protective duties; diminution of oversea cargo transshipped in Australia. The average cargo and passengers are about half the one steamer’s capacity. An extra steamer for the busiest three months in the year, when tried left a very heavy loss. The probable loss on an extra steamer throughout the year would be over £lOO,OOO. No conceivable increase in traffic would substantially affect these results. What were the causes of this comparative decline of passenger traffic in the South Island-Melbourne service?

The same steamers ran between Wellington and Sydney and between the South Island and Melbourne, so that the reasons for preferring the more northerly route must be sought elsewhere. The following are suggested:—(l) Milder weather conditions; (2) The growing importance of Wellington, brought about by the surrounding large increase in population, the improvement in railway communications, and its unique position as a radiating centre for the Dominion; (3) From many districts, including Christchurch, it was quicker, even if slightly dearer, to go to Melbourne via Sydney; (4) The fact that, for various reasons, Sydney has always been in closer reiation than Melbourne with New Zealand. There may have been other causes, but these are submitted as the chief explanation of what was obviously the fact.

With this small proportion of the steamers’ cargo space occupied, and thei* passenger capacity only about half full between Sydney and Wellington any a quarter full between Bluff and Hobart, it is little wonder that the service had been a matter of grave concern to the company’s management. The only thing which prevented some rearrangement of the service long before the War was the additional traffic between Hobart and Melbourne. Though there was little traffic between New Zealand and Hobart, the passenger and z cargo traffic between Hobart and Melbourne formed a substantial addition to (he steamers’ earnings. The coming into force of the Australian Navigation Act, as well as other circumstances of the trade, have rendered impracticable a resumption of this carriage by the New Zea-land-Melbourne steamer.

What are the reasons for the trade between New Zealand and Melbourne thus failing to increase in keeping with the increase in population, and in fact decreasing? First, the decline in agricultural production in New Zealand in favour of pastoral production. Once we had a surplus of agricultural products to export to Australia—now we more often import them. On the other hand, the wool, meat, butter and cheese, which our farmers find it more profitable than grain to produce, are not wanted in Australia, except in small quantities or under special circumstances.

Secondly, there is the tendency for both countries to become self-sufficing and by the operation of protective Customs tariffs to keep one anotner’s products out. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have restrictive duties on trade and expect to have the trade, too. The Reciprocity Agreement of 1923 was certainly a step towards the encouragement of trade with Australia, but it applied to only a limited number of articles and consequently the effect has not been very great, the principal commodity involved being timber, which is usually carried on cargo steamers.

Again, if the two steamers were utilized to make a weekly service, to get round in time it would be necessary to run between Melbourne and Bluff only and to tranship at Bluff ail cargo to or from northern ports, which would, ot course, be a very expensive proceeding. We estimate the loss on this service would, with the present traffic, after allowing for the cost of forwarding the northern cargo, amount to about £lBO,OOO per annum. Increase of cargo traffic would not give relief, rather the reverse; and any additional passenger traffic induced as a result of a weekly service via the Bluff would probably be off-set by the Wellington-Mel-bourne and Lyttelton-Melbourne passenger traffic being to a large extent diverted via Sydney.

Even if an extra steamer were run for about three months in the busiest part of the passenger season, it would merely mean that her earnings would be practically at the expense of the other vessel, so that both would have a heavy loss. We have already tried this for two seasons, but with results that do not encourage a repetition. Even during the Exhibition the two steamers made a considerable loss. It is not to be anticipated that during the coming summer season the passenger traffic will be more than one vessel will be able to accommodate.

One of the difficulties in running this service is the number of ports of call, including two tidal harbours. The more calls, the more delays that occur. It is difficult to stow the cargo for several ports to the best advantage, and it often happens that the vessel is delayed to complete the discharge of a single hold after all the cargo from the other holds for the particular port is discharged. Delays through shortages of crews and wharf labour, and through tides, coaling, rain, etc., are all enhanced in their effects. There is now more time occupied in medical and immigration inspections than there used to be, while under the present arrangements a vessel cannot be worked continuously through the night to pick up time, as was formerly the case in New Zealand ports. The cargo also comes irregularly, sometimes large quantities for one port and next trip perhaps very little. In spite of these difficulties the service has been run with fair regularity. Since the resumption of the Manuka in October last, after a forced withdrawal of several weeks owing to the local shortage caused by the strike in Newcastle, \ye are pleased’ to say that the vessels have only once lost a day on the regular 21 days interval from Melbourne, except when kept back for the periodical docking.

It may be said that facilities make traffic, and to a limited extent that is true. But can it be expected that any considerable increase in cargo would take place if the service were a weekly instead of a threeweekly one? A little neri'hable car<ro. perhaps, and some other odd lines; but it would be a very sanguine person who would say that the whole would amount to more

than five per cent, of the present cargo. As to passengers, there may be more in it; but to pay the expenses of another steamer they would have to increase three or fourfold, which is, of course, totally out of the question.

If we look at the South Island-Melbourne service in comparison with the services bei tween Sydney and Wellington or Auckland, , we certainly find a considerable disparity, j But the circumstances warrant that differj cnce. The Wellington-Sydney and Auck-land-Sydney services have each only one port of call at this end, which means a great saving in time and expense. There is considerably more cargo between Sydney and Wellington than between Sydney and Bluff, Dunedin and Lyttelton put together, or than between Melbourne and Bluff, Dunedin, Lyttelton and Wellington put together.

Again, between Auckland and Sydney there is considerably more cargo than between Wellington and Sydney. That is not I because of greater facilities, as the Auck- ■ land-Sydney and Wellington-Sydney ser- | vices are exactly the same and have been ! so for years.

I The passenger traffic between Wellington ' and Sydney and that between Auckland and , Sydney is in each case nearly four times | as great as that between New Zealand and i Melbourne. The tendency nowadays is for passengers to patronize the largest and ■ fastest steamers over the quickest routes, and such traffic can be developed to its : greatest extent only between the more im- • port ant terminals, particularly where assist- ' ed by freight-earning. The question arises what effect the pre- ' sent arrangements have on our tourist I traffic. No doubt arriving in one of the North Island ports and leaving again from the South, or vice versa, was a convenient ' route for visitors to New Zealand. Our record of round tickets issued in this way, i however, shows that in pre-war days there : were only about 1,400 a year; to which i must be added a fourth to cover those ' issued by the Huddart Parker steamer, a I total of about 1750 a year. But a great proportion of these were people from New ’ Zealand visiting Melbourne and Sydney, or j commercial people and the like, and a further large proportion merely came or went ; by the South for convenience and would j now travel by the northerly route both ; ways, if the dates of the present Melbourne--1 Soutli Island steamer did not suit; so that. | the -actual number deterred from visiting i New Zealand by the alteration in this serI vice must be very small. Again, the fact '• of running a good part of their round voy- ■ age with inadequate traffic operated to re- ; strict the size of vessels in the pre-war Syd-ney-Wellington-Bluff-Melbourne service. Under the present conditions the average size of vessels between Sydney and New Zealand ' is much greater than it was, which tends to : encourage tourist traffic to the country as a whole, of which the attractions of the ! South Island will induce its due proportion, i In the foregoing we have endeavoured to ; give a clear and fair exposition of the facts and circumstances of this trade. We i have shown that so far from supporting an additional steamer or steamers, the trade is at present a losing one with the existing fares, freights and volume of traffic. We ' place these facts before you with regret, ! as nothing would have given us greater i pleasure than to have been able to meet the natural desire of the residents of the South Island for an augmented direct connection with Australia.