PROPOSALS DROPPED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 212, 20 June 1933, Page 5

PROPOSALS DROPPED.

RATIONALISING OF SHIPPING.

(United Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, June 19

The Council of the Chamber of Shipping has decided not to proceed with rationalisation proposals owing to insufficient support.

The Officers' Federation, representing 13,000 British mercantile marine captains, navigating and engineer officers, in a communication to Mr Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, on the eve. of the World Economic Conference, reminded the Government that British Shipping was suffering under an.economic blockade, almost as disastrous in its effects and possibilities as the submarine blockade of the Great War. The federation emphasised that the maintenance of Britain's merchant fleet was not merely a matter of national pride and ambition, but was a vital necessity to the island centre of the far flung Commonwealth of Nations. *

The communication also said the federation considered that _ subsidies and discriminatory legislation were imperillinG: British shipping, and trusted the Government would pursue a bold and decisive policy to restore prosperity. The Chamber of Shipping invited shipowners to consider before the meeting of the Council on June 16, two projected schemes to rationalise cai'so" tonnage. It was intended by a national plan to stimulate the scrapping of tonnage and by an international plan to encourage the further laying up of surplus tonnage. Also the Chamber aimed at raising freights to a more remunerative, but only moderately profitable, level.