PACIFIC SHIPPING RIVALRY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22103, 27 May 1937, Page 12

PACIFIC SHIPPING RIVALRY

♦ HOPES OF COMPROMISE REPORTED SPECIAL LEGISLATION MAY BE NECESSARY LONDON, May 25. The political editor of the Australian Associated Press learns that there is every hope that it will be unnecessary for New Zealand and Australia to proceed with legislation seeking to prohibit the Matson Line from carrying passengers between New Zealand and Australia. This emerges from to-day's deliberations at the meeting of the Imperial Conference Pacific Shipping Committee. It is gathered that a decision has so far not been reached, but the discussions have progressed sufficiently to suggest that the viewpoints of New Zealand, Australia, and the United States can be reconciled. It is assumed from this that the United States is willing to compromise regarding prohibiting British ships carrying passengers between American ports and Honolulu. It is understood that the committee also discussed the wider question of Pacific shipping, namely, the abandonment of the Union Company's San Francisco-Sydney service and the Matson Line's subsidised competition with the Cana-dian-Australian Line. It dealt with Britain's tentative proposals which earlier were submitted to the Dominions, as the outcome of the Imperial Shipping Committee's report and which the Dominions considered inadequate to meet the situation. A further study of the proposals suggests that perhaps they are a little better than they seemed, but at present it is impossible to say whether the conference will achieve an agreement or a satisfactory scheme to compete with the Matson Line, such as the building of two new liners.