Page 610 Advertisement 2

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 95, Issue 6, 16 December 1957, Page 610

That is the classic test of value, but it can’t be applied without a knowledge of the facts. So we turn the spotlight on... freightrates. The money which a shipper pays to send a consignment overseas is, in fact, a calculated proportion of the cost of operating the ship and this in turn is the total of many different items. Some of these will be obvious to anyone who is familiar with ships. There are, to begin with, the “daily costs” of the ship’s voyage, which are continuous whether she has cargo on board or not. Clearly these include the wages of the, crew, the stores and provisions required to maintain them and the ship, and the cost of fuel. Also under this head are included the dues which must be paid at each port visited and .each canal traversed, together with the cost of insurance against, loss or damage of vessel, crew and cargo. Less obvious perhaps is a group of items which is not directly related to any particular voyage. Nevertheless, each trip must bear its proportion of these expenses, which include the cost of servicing and repairs, including dry-docking. Also under this head comes a proportion of the cost of the survey which, under British Ministry of Transport,. regulations, every ship must, undergo every four years.