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The origins of Geo. H. Scales Ltd can be traced to 1897 when a group of central New Zealand sheep farmers formed a Freight Reduction Committee to challenge the freight rates being charged by the big British shipping lines carrying produce to England. After a collapsed agreement with a Dunedin firm the group found a supporter in George Herbert Scales. George was knowledgeable in the business ways and needs of city and farm and was soon chartering ships on behalf of the Freight Reduction Committee. This resulted in a staunch competition with the established lines, and led to the formation of a private company in 1912. The unusual aspect of this was that shareholding was confined to sheep farmers (with the exception of George himself). Through its early days the business was a shoestring operation taking any available cargoes to fill its vessels, and often Geo. H. Scales supplemented loadings on his own account. The company also over this period had an association with the Clan Line. With the start of World War One the British Lines seized an opportunity to break a truce agreement of 1912 by way of wartime conditions and so shut Scales out of the European trade. The effect of this was to turn the Company s attention to the trans-Tasman trade which proved highly profitable. Geo. H. Scales died in 1928 and the company continued, chartering wool ships, handling insurance, coal agency work and stevedoring. When World War Two arrived the British Lines attitude was more reasonable and Scales were allocated a share of the reduced sailings. However it was the obtaining, in late 1941, of the agency work for all Soviet ships trading to New Zealand which was to be a significant point in the Company s future. With the revised economic structure of the post-war era new companies entered the trade to Europe with the effect that Scales market share continually declined. It finally ended abruptly in 1977 when the British Lines tore up their agreement with the company in order to allocate quotas to the new Shipping Corporation of New Zealand. This reduced Scales to a very modest agency business. As it began to rebuild its business in the 1980s Scales participated in a number of shipping ventures, including a return to the Tasman trade as a partner in Tasman Express Line. Some of these went badly and resulted in the company restructuring in 1988-89. After this Scales Corporation emerged as the parent company with Geo. H. Scales Ltd as its subsidiary. The Corporation also increased its earlier stake in Polarcold Stores Ltd and engaged in a number of joint ventures, in fishing and trading areas, with Russian companies. The origins of Geo. H. Scales Ltd can be traced to 1897 when a group of central New Zealand sheep farmers formed a Freight Reduction Committee. Geo. H. Scales Ltd. - Christchurch