BRITISH SHIPPING

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21088, 13 February 1934, Page 8

BRITISH SHIPPING

EFFECT OF SUBSIDISED COMPETITION TRADE BETWEEN DOMINION AND AUSTRALIA (rEESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, February 12. The Hon. Alexander Shaw, chairman of the Peninsular and Orient Company, speaking to-day at a luncheon at which lie entertained the executive and officers of the Union Steam Ship Company, referred to the competition with British shipping by highly subsidised United States vessels, and commented on their participation in the domestic trade between New Zealand and Australia-a trade which they had never created. "Is it unfair," he asked, 'to ask vour distinguished statesmen who, as I well know, have the interests of New Zealand and the Empire so near their hearts, whether they are really preoarad gradually to abandon this vital Empire interest to its fate at foreign hands? "If they are not so prepared, will they not say so in order that, as a practical business matter, we may know where we are—whether we are to have something like fair plav or whether through the vista of the years we can look forward to nothing but the increasing menace of a wholly uneconomic foreign competition,'without any limit and without any end except the gradual extinction of British shipping. Difficult Contest '■lt is yours," he said, "to strain every effort to deserve well of the public you serve. In the years to come I thir-k you will all look back with pride to the days when you devoted every ounce of energy to keeping the Red Ensign of Britain on the seas in the face of the worst storm which has ever threatened British shipping. It is an unequal contest, 1 know, but it will not endure for ever.

"The Empire is waking up. It knows its debt to the British ships which were its foundation, and which are still its only safe link and ture defence. In the meantime reIr.x no effort, and do not become embittered. None of us has anything but feelings of friendship and admiration for the great people of the United States. None of us would dream of challenging their right to build up a great mercantile marine, and I do not believe for a moment any enlightened section of the American public opinion would challenge our right to defend our purely domestic shipping trades. Domestic Problem "Your domestic problem, between New Zealand and Australia, is aside from the general question of how best to counter high foreign subsidies. It is different in kind and extent from the general problem of Imperial shipping policy. It is wholly a domestic issue and capable of separate and speedy .solution. "We have an ally more powerful than all the wealth of foreign taxpayers which is arrayed against us," Mr Shaw continued. "Of recent weeks it has been my privilege to consult with hundreds of representative men on this great matter—in Scotland, England, India, Australia, and New Zealand, and everywhere I can feel an advance by this great unseen ally, this unconquered spiritual force of our people, this love of a fair deal and this high recognition of the yet unfinished destiny of the British race. The greatest days are not behind us: they lie ahead. The spirit of our heroic history lights the path of the fuUire.*'