MEAT FREIGHTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 9

MEAT FREIGHTS.

FURTHER REDUCTION ARRANGED By Telegraph—Press Assoaiation AUCKLAND, July 14. The chairman of the New Zealand Meat Board, Mr David Jones, M.P. for Mid-Canterbury, arrived at Auckland on the Niagara, having returned from a visit to Great Britain on business connected with the operations of the Board. Mr Jones left New Zealand on the Rangitane at the beginning of March. After spending two months in Britain negotiating a new shipping freight contract, and investigating conditions of the sale of Dominion meat, he came home via Canada and the United States, spending a fortnight in the latter juntry. The existing freight contract will expire in October, and its renewal on the most favourable terms obtainable was the principal object of his trip, Mr Jones said. The three shipping companies concerned were the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, the New Shipping Company, and the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company. The expiring contract had been in force for three years. Under its terms freight rates had been reduced by 10 per from the previous level, and in the final year there had been a further reduction of 5 per cent. The new contract, covering the next three years, had been made at a reduction of 2 h per cent, from the rates now ruling. The big drop in the volume of imports to Australia and New Zealand had made the question of freight reduction a thorny one to handle. The fact that considerable numbers of vessels were having to come out in ballast had an important bearing on the questions of freight on our exports.