British Shipping

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22659, 14 March 1939, Page 8

British Shipping

The Imperial Shipping Committee, whose report and recommendations were summarised in the cable news yesterday, follows the Chamber of Shipping in moving the British Government to take resolute action in defence Of a vital but languishing Empire service. The committee specially draws attention to competitive attack in Far Eastern waters, where German and Italian liners are aided by heavy subsidies and Japanese shipping holds a 10 to 15 per cent, advantage, due to currency depreciation and lower standards of living. The committee generally recommends such measures of rationalisation as “ greater co-oper- “ ation ” among British shipowners and “ more “ devolution of management,” whatever may be meant by that; but after a tentative “ if ” and a waggle of words about “ consideration ” and “ practicability,” the committee cuts closest to the bone in suggesting “financial assistance.” The Chamber of Shipping was bolder. It responded to the British Government’s request for information and advice by issuing, in, January, very plain proposals for assistance. These included a renewed subsidy for deep sea tramps, to the extent of £2,500,000 a year for five years; £5;000,000 a year for five years for a liner Defence Fund, not to be considered or applied as a subsidy but to be “administered “by the Treasury, on the advice of an inde- “ pendent commission ”; measures to ensure the greater use of British bottoms in the near Continental trade services, together with a subsidy of £500,000; regulative and financial protection for coastal tramps and liners; arid undefined assistance for tankers. The total of direct subsidies asked for is £8,500,000 a year at least; no estimate can be given of the cost of the regulative proposals. This is, of course, a very tali order. As the “ Economist ” says, when a sick industry is invited by the State to write its own prescription and writes an order for, say, £ 10,000,000 a year, it is “ only “ natural to express doubts about the efficacy ” of the remedy proposed. But the “ Economist ” says, just as truly, that if any British industry can rightly claim the support of public funds.