ROUND TABLE PARLEY ON MARINE PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 219, 16 September 1935, Page 7

ROUND TABLE PARLEY ON MARINE PROBLEM.

PACIFIC SHIPPING.

Dominion and U.S. Interests

To Confer.

BRITISH MAGNATE'S SURPRISE,

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph— Copyright)

(Received 11 a.m.)

SYDXEY, this day,

Arrangements are being made by the Federal and New Zealand Governments for a round table conference of British and United States shipping interests operating in the Pacific, said Mr. J. A. Lyons.

lie added that the conference would bo held in London this year. Mr. S. M. Bruce would represent Australia and Sir James Parr New Zealand, and the British Government was also expected to send a delegate. The conference will endeavour to bring about a more equitable distribution of the shipping trade in the Paciiic between the two nations.

"I am mystified at the report that the Australian and New Zealand Governments are to confer with the Matson Line in London before Christmas and am unaware of any arrangement in this direction," said the Hon. Alexander Shaw, managing director of the P. and

O. and the British-India Steam Kavigation Company, according to a London cable message.

Matter for Dominion Statesmen,

"I do not understand how London can bo the venue as the centre of the situation is in the Pacific," he added. "Nobody in London is armed with authority to speak for the Union Steam Ship Company and other lines concerned. Apparently the matter is entirely one for the Dominion statesmen interested in preserving the services from extinction.

'"It would be news to me that the Dominion Governments had approached the Matson Line or that the latter had agreed to confer. I see no prospect of the Matson Line participating with a view to forgoing subsidised competition with Australia and New Zealand local services, as previous approaches on the subject, some quite recent, have failed, which is not surprising.

"The Matson Line is quite entitled to its advantage by the favourable conditions in the local British trade. The blame of allowing such inequity rests elsewhere. I appreciate Mr. Lyons' and Mr, Forbes , and their Ministers' interest in British shipping, and the value and sagacity of their approach to the problem, a solution of which is appreciably nearer than it was a year

ago."

Press Support Given. Both the "Sunday Times" and the "Sunday Observer," in leading articles, support tho Hon. Alexander Sltaw in urging the implementing of Mr. Walter Runciman's pronouncement of July, last year. The "Sunday Times" says that

"the sen is the birth-right which we cannot .surrender to nations which are banking on the British traditional, nonretaliatory policy. They must be undeceived."

The "Sunday Observer" expresses the opinion that, with the situation daily getting worse, the Board of Trade has surely advanced beyond an academic frame of mind regarding the choice between reservation to Imperial trade of preferential treatment for British ships or cargoes carried by British ships in Empire "ports, and duties against subsidised vessels. It adds that tariffs have proved the only firm vindication of our rights to check our effacement. The public becomes cynical when a crisis is readied, but the dawdling procession of Ministerial statements and inquiries blocks a decision.

"The Times," in welcoming the speech of the Hon. Alexander Shaw at the trials of the new P. and O. liner Strathmore, refers hopefully to the forthcoming conference between Australia, Xew Zealand and the Matson Line. It says rectnt developments, especially the exposures in connection with the American mail contracts, justify the expectation that the chief subsidy-giving Governments will be less lavish. Britons need only be reminded that essential shipping services were still the mainstay of the national existence to ensure that they would demand measures to secure their maintenance.

QUESTION OF PROTECTION.

MR. COATES NON-COMMITTAL

(By Telegraph. —Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this dav.

When the statement made by the Hon. Alexander Shaw concerning the need for protection of British shipping in the Pacific against subsidised competition was referred to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Coates, he said that, in the absence of details, he was not inclined to make any comment.

Mr. Coatcs added, however, that the question was still a matter for negotiation.