AMERICA AND WORLD'S SHIPPING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 143, 19 June 1922, Page 8

AMERICA AND WORLD'S SHIPPING.

RATE WAR STARTED. j (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 10. American shipping business continues in a parlous condition, and redoubled efforts are being made by President Harding to resuscitate the world position of the United States as a maritime nation. A big fight has been initiated in Congress on the subject of granting a scheme oi subsidies to American shipowners, but there are interests which are vigorously opposing such a plan on the plea that such enormous expenditure would be nothing less than an extravagant wa6te of public funds to a class of capitalists who have made millions out of wartime conditions. The attitude of President Harding is an unwavering one to push the Subsidy Bill through Congress, and he has politely told the Washington Administration that the bill will have to be forced through, as he firmly believes Europe is trying to wreck America's shipping! These foreign shipping interests, on the other hand, have flatly denied the imputation, and retort that they are simply in quest of world-wide business and are prepared to wage a. lengthy war in order to secure a fair share of the international ocean transportation business. Echoes of the passenger rate war that is entangling rival British and American shipping concerns on the Atlantic Coast have reached San Francisco, and they indicate that the struggle for passencer trade, particularly with South America, will reach greater intensity and possible e*tension to the Pacific seaboard. Mr. A. D. Lasker, chairman of the United States Shipping Board, has characterised the action of the British line of Lamport and Holt, in reducing its passenger fares as "an effort to drive the American flag off the seas," adding defiantly that "we will stick as long as necessary to assure American domination of passenger traffic on all ocean 6." A TEST FIGHT. Supplementing this statement, Mr. Lasker said: "The Shipping Board wishes to make it clear that we did not seek this thing; that we were in friendly relations with the privately-owned ships of every flag. But we believe this may be a test fight in all the oceans, as to whether America is to continue expanding its merchant marine, and we are prepared to fight at every point for any length of time, as we are meeting this one." The British-American passenger rate war constitutes the first Ueak in ocean passenger rates from the wartime peak. Lamport and Holt have cut their rates one-third on fares to South American ports. Mr. Lasker's words foreshadow a cut on the Canadian line at Vancouver, and the necessity of the AdmiTal Line'? meeting this competition. Should the Admiral Line of San Francisco reduce rates to the Orient out of Seattle, other American lines at this port would necessarily follow suit. The Shipping Board met the Lamport and Holt cut by reducing its own rates to South America to figures that undercut the new British rate. This aroused a cry of "unfair" from the Lamport aud Holt operators, who asserted that they lowered their prices because their steamers were slower than the American Shipping Board steamers operated by the Munson Line. £Frank C. Munson. president of the line, replied that in 1920, when the Munson Line was using vessels slower than those of Lamport and Holt, his company made no reduction in fares to offset that difference in speed. GERMANY IN THE RUNNING. German shipping men have no fear of American or British competition on the high seas. They believe the war and its aftermath which deprived Germany of her merchant fleet have served to make Germany potential master of the commercial oceans by forcing her to build a new balanced fleet to replace the ships taken by the Allied nations. This, at least, is the view of the present German attitude towards world shipping gained by Edward P. Farley, sales manager'of tHe. United States Government Shipping Board, as a result of a first-hand study of conditions in Germany and present activities in German ports. Mr. Farley's conclusions havejut been embodied in a report made to Mr. Lasker, which includes also views formed while abroad.

Mr. Farley nsserted that not a shipyard in Germany is idle, and he intimated that the Germans are building few vessels for foreign account simply because the yards cannot handle the demand for German-flag ships, through accumulation of orders. The vessels being constructed and those already at sea, he added, were built specially to fit the trade in which they were ensaeed. and, as a result, the rapid'y increasing German merchant fleet is the bfst-baf-anced in the world. Both the American and British fleets, be explained, include many war-built vessels, now more or less unfitted for certain trade routes.

In the United Kingdom Mr. Far'.oy found a disposition on the part of the British shipowners and operators to consider the United States as a serious competitor and acknowledge the necessity of the United States' maintainine and operating its war-built merchant fleet. It Js the British view, Mr Farlev said, that if the United States intends to operate permanently a merchant fle?t ot the size it now possesses, there i= nothing for British interests to do but to modify their plans to meet the situation honestly and in a friendly sririt. In the meantime the 1600-odd wartime vessels hurriedly built by the United States Government during the days of the recent war, are now Jvin» idle in various Eastern and Western ports, unable to secure canoes The;e vessels were offered a second time to American shipowners, but nil the tenders received in Washington were rejected owmar to the prices offered boiii" disgustingly low.