PORT OF WANGANUI

Southland Times, Issue 21195, 23 September 1930, Page 8

PORT OF WANGANUI

VIGOROUS DEFENCE DIRECT SHIPMENT OF DAIRY PRODUCE PUBLIC MEETING’S RESOLUTIONS (Per United Press Association.) Wanganui, September 22. A vigorous defence of Wanganui as a port of direct loading of overseas ships was made to-night at the most representative, public meeting held in the city for many years. The Dairy Produce Control Board was subjected to criticism in a comprehensive review of the factors leading up to the trouble which has arisen round the shipment, of dairy produce. Strongly worded resolutions of protest at the unfair position the port has been placed in were carried and these were capped by a motion that the meeting pledge itself to support a petition now before Parliament praying for the abolition of the Control Board. The 'meeting showed a marked disinclination to support centralization and the port of Wanganui was credited with fighting the battles of all the coastal ports of the Dominion. The resolution carried were: (1) That this meeting emphatically protests against the action of the board in entering into an agreement with the oversea shipping companies wherby a number of dairy factories within the economic area served by the port of Wanganui, are by the terms of such agreement precluded from exporting their dairy produce through the port of Wanganui being the cheapest and nearest port. (2) That in view of the fact that £640,000 of public money has been expended upon the development of the port of Wanganui this meeting strongly resents the present unwarranted attempt by the Dairy Board to interfere with and destroy the port’s trade. (3) That as the oversea shipping companies (vide the statement made by the acting-chairman of the Dairy Board, Mr J. Hine, at Hamilton on June 25, 1930, and in his review published in the New Zealand Exporter of June 26, 1930) insist that it is more economical to pay coastal freights and that the elimination of this condition would not reduce the ocean freight paid by the industry. This meeting requests that Wanganui be placed in the same position in this respect as other grading ports. (4) That the Government be urged to take whatever steps are necessary to have this iniquitious agreement set aside and the conditions which have applied to the port of Wanganui since it became a grading port in 1911, reverted to. (5) That copies of the resolutions be forwarded to the acting-Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, and Messrs J. T. Hogan, F. S. Langstone, H. G. Dickie, J. A. Nash, J. Linklater, and W. J. Polson M.P’s., the chairman of the Dairy Board and the manager of each oversea shipping company.