COMPETITION BY SUBSIDY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20736, 22 December 1932, Page 16

COMPETITION BY SUBSIDY.

jONE CAUSE OF SHIPPING STvTJMP. J | VIEWS OF CHAIRMAN OF ORIENT • LINE. UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—BI ELXCT*IC TELEGRAPH —C IPTKIGHT.) LONDON, December 20. At the annual meeting of the Orient Shipping Line Sir Alan Anderson, who presided, said, "We have been guided in our decision not to pay a dividend not so much by cash, which would enable payment of a dividend, as by the prospects of trade. The Australian passenger trade does not yet show those clear signs of improvement v which would alone justify the payment of a dividend from reserves"We have reason to be thankful iu this year of collapse that we have not only avoided an actual loss, but have realised a cash profit of £IOO,OOO on holiday cruises, which have helped to solve the unemployment problem. "Among the world causes of our depression is the fact that one nation after another has begun giving enormous subsidies, dumping its shipping services on the world with the apparent object of ruining shipowners who try to make ends meet. <-i _^ ats< ? n Line, by placing on tie ban Irancisco-New Zealand-Austral-ian run, three new vessels, whose capita cost and running expenses are much greater than judged by past experience, the trade will repay, is competing . ■with a British line which cannot dip into the public purse and. is unable , to „° T ,' p ubHc such costlv vessels. ' O-nrtn nnn tSOn Line had found the j _0,000,000 dollars itself and was charged normal rates of interest on it, or were m any serious risk of having to pay the 1 eventual loss, we might blame them for gambling but as a grateful nation is ' taking the risk we must congratulate ' them on being safe men, not gamblers:" ! As a recent visit by the House Com- 1 mittee or tlio Auckland Hospital Board ' to the Warkuorth Hospital showeu 3 that there was only one patient al- ' though a staff of five was maintained, 1 the committee advised the Board at J a meeting that in its opinion the> i continuance of the institution was un- £ warranted. It recommended that the ] whole of the Board's .services in the t district should be reconsidered at the *t end of the financial year. ■ \- | £