PORT OF TIMARU

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23315, 26 September 1945, Page 4

PORT OF TIMARU

Claims Advanced Shipping Should Be Decentralised Unfair Railway Charge (F.0.P.R.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 25. The claims cf Timaru as a shipping port were advanced by the Rev. Clyde Carr (Government, Timaru) in the House to-day, speaking on the report of the committee which investigated the competition between the railways and coastal shipping. Mr Carr expressed a hope that the centralisation of snipping carried out during the war would not be continued, otherwise it would be to the detriment of ports usually referred to as secondary ports. Some of the smaller ports, said Mr Carr, were equally suitable for coastal and overseas shipping. Timaru was a first-class port, mere had been a lot of centralisation of snipping on the New Zealand coast during the war. That had prooabiy been necessary, but he was airaid it might be carried over into the post-war period, but he hoped not. A great deal of money had been spent on some of the ports where there were main centres, and he was hoping that that money would not be lost. In his view it was necessary to encourage both coastal and overseas shipping so as to maintain the secondary ports and enable them to meet the expenditure incurred in improving them, otherwise the charges upon the ratepayers in the rating areas would become excessive, the ports would become white elephants and the money spent on them would have been thrown away.

The Centralisation of Industry Committee, of which he was chairman, was making recommendations to the Railways Department that there should be further concessions in order to encourage the establishment of industries where there were centres and raw materials could be imported into those

centres and finished products sent cut from them. The committee naa a report from the i'aiiways investigating officer, and it recognised that differential and iocal rqtes did come into the transport problem. It also realised that it was desirable that coastal shipping should not be put off the map. Maritime Training Mr Carr added that he and Mr- L. G. Lowry (Government, Otaki) with the help and encouragement or the Minister of Transport, had been putting up proposals for the training of New Zealand boys in the Mercantile Marine. He looked forward to the time when not only ships trading between New Zealand and overseas, but also ships of the New Zealand Navy would have New Zealand crews. It was going to be a big help in training New Zealand boys to have coastal ships running. He had been in touch with the Seamen’s Union in regard to the framing of boys and lie found it was difficult to absorb the boys now being trained. A number of boys were placed on the former Finnish barque Pamir, but the fact remained that not enough jobs were available for all the boys who were keen to get away to sea. New Zealand was a maritime nation, and those boys Should be encouraged. Mr Carr added that working .with him and, Mr Lowry was a retired mariner,. Captain Hale Monro, who was putting up certain proposals with a view to achieving collaboration in the matter between the Government, the shipping companies and the seamen’s organisations and ahy others interested. “We have to train these boys and develop coastal shipping,” added Mr Carr. It was also stated by Mr Carr that the Railways Department had a stranglehold on the ports of Lyttelton and Timaru. Everything landed there had to go into the goods shed, though much cargo consigned to those towns had to be lifted by lorries. People should not be compelled to pay a charge for putting their goods through a railway shed.