SHIPPING SUBSIDIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 6

SHIPPING SUBSIDIES.

The acceptance by the House of Commons of the Government's proposals to subsidise tramp steamers means a radical departure from Britain's traditional policy. Large mail subsidies are paid by the British Post Office, and in a few cases money has been provided at cheap rates to allow of super-passenger liners being , built to carry the flag in the trans-Atlantic trade; but tramp steamers, which form such a large section of the nation's mercantile marine, have competed over the world's trade routes without assistance. The post-war policy of subsidies adopted by the United States, France, Italy and Japan has made the employment of this great fleet of cargo-carriers an uneconomic proposition, and the British Government had either to come to their assistance or stand by and see the slow disintegration of a great industry in which even the safety of the British Isles can be said to be involved. The Bill that the House of Commons has passed does not provide for indiscriminate payments to cargo vessels. Its intention is to help in the elimination of the uneconomic and to encourage the construction and operation of j the most up-to-date types. But having established a precedent, who is to say how far Britain may not eventually go along the path that other countries have followed? Efforts have been made to convince the countries that are indulging in a policy of lavish subsidies that they constitute a form of economic warfare that in the long , run can benefit no one. These efforts have met with no success. The only course open in the meantime therefore appeared to be to meet the opposition on its own ground, and the principle of direct subsidy Britain has adopted in the new measure.