The Press THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1966. Pacific Shipping

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31237, 8 December 1966, Page 20

The Press THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1966. Pacific Shipping

It is easy to sympathise with the dismay of the Seamen s Union at the ending of a shipping service tween New Zealand and North America manned by New Zealand crews. It is not so easy to imagine how the service might profitably be continued by the Union Steam Ship Company or replaced by a Stateowned line. The Union Company has run ships to the American coast throughout the greater part of its history. The company, part of the P. and 0. group since 1917, now finds the run unprofitable. The last two ships on the route, the Waihemo and the Waitemata, are slow and old. They have not been able to compete for the general cargo and refrigerated cargo offering on the route, although they were suited to the less lucrative timber trade. The directors of the Union Company in New Zealand, and also, no doubt, the P. and 0. Company, which owns all the ordinary shares of the Union Company, have concluded that the recurrent losses on the run cannot be sustained. The rest of the Union Company’s routes make money for the New Zealand owners of preference shares as well as for P. and 0. If they are unwilling to subsidise the Pacific run the New Zealand taxpayer is even less likely to be anxious to do so. For many years New Zealand savings have been heavily committed to forms of investment other than shipping, which requires a huge capital and big reserves to withstand periodic losses. Neither subsidies for an overseas-owned company nor a State-owned local line which is bound to face losses on the Pacific route can appeal to taxpayers.

The United States taxpayer subsidises the building of American ships; and this makes competition stiffer for other countries. American-owned Matson liners carry some cargo to Auckland. Two ships of the Crusader Line —jointly owned by the New Zealand Shipping Company, the Port, Blue Star, and Shaw Savill lines—are fully refrigerated and carry timber, meat, and general cargo across the Pacific. Both ships are manned by Chinese crews. The Ger-man-owned Columbus Line runs three ships between American and New Zealand ports. The trade, while growing steadily, is at present insufficient to support replacements for the Waihemo and Waitemata. The day may come when the Union Company will seek to re-enter the Pacific trade with larger, faster, and more versatile ships. It would be idle to suppose that a State-owned line or a private line owned by New Zealanders and manned by New Zealand crews would be of any advantage to New Zealand at present or in the foreseeable future.