BRITISH PASSENGER SHIPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 139, 14 June 1932, Page 3

BRITISH PASSENGER SHIPS

UNFAIR COMPETITION. AN APPEAL TO PATRIOTISM. The Hon. Alexander Shaw, deputychairman of the P. and O. Company, in a dinner to the Lord Mayor of London on board the Strathnaver, in Tilbury Docks, referred particularly to foreign shipping competition. London was still the undisputed centre of world finance, he said, and the world's greatest seaport. British shipping was passing through a fiery trial. It had never endured such a prolonged and severe depression, which would continue until the channels of international trade had been cleared of excessive tariff barriers and the economic and political chaos arising from war debts and reparations. He prayed that Britain's clcar-cut policy of the cancellation of the largely unpayable and' largely unrcccivable war debts would meet "at the Lausanne Conference the responso that its vision and courage deserved. . Britons not only should "buy British, but should "travel Mr. Shaw maintained. British shipping had. never asked for subsidies, and had no Government umbrella to shelter it_ from the storm of subsidised foreign shipping, hut in facing unfair competition British shipowners had the right to cxpcct fair plav from their own kith and kin. Some competitors were not only subsidised to run on an uneconomic basis, but had tn© Suez Canal dues paid for them. Britons mostly preponderated as pafJscngers on Italian vessels. An Italian newspaper had recently boasted that the Italian flag had acquired absolute predominance in the Indo-European passenger traffic: That claim at present was illusory, hut the menace was real. Such uneconomic competition, concluded Mr. Shaw, impaired the strength of Britain's sea heritage and sapped tne invisible exports cm which the balance of her international trade largely depended. The problem had reached such a pitch of severity as to demand the serious attention of the public,_ if not of the Government. Britons might well pause to consider the menace. The Lord Mayor said that he hoped that the appeal would not fall on deaf *ir unsympathetic ears. Without the shipping industry the nation would be paral} T 6ed, and tlicir little isolated island of no" account in the world.