RINGS AND REBATES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1078, 17 March 1911, Page 5

RINGS AND REBATES.

In June lasfc-Jlr. Hull, Minister fof Fi-nance-in'the Union Cabinet, in-renewing the- agreement between the Government ui<r the South African shipping lines, flilng.freight' rates, made it a condition'that exporters of South, African produce should receive substantial, concessions. The present grain rates were to be maintained, instead of being raised. When numbers of the Shipping Conference had do space available .snippers were to be free to employ other means of transport .without'losing rebates. Iheßritish .Royal Commission on ShipPing Kings, in its report issued in 1909, touched on South African conditions. The most effective of the ingenious arrangements of, the "rrngs".. of shipowners tor defeating competition is the system of deferred rebates': by which . the shippers, whosupport,the "conference" lines become entitled to certain rebates on the freights nominally charged, but only receive he cash some months after it has been earned," and then only if the shipper has 'Sent no goods by any non-confer-ence line of vessels, except in a few speoial cases. * .uh'%?*?*& iSf th . 6 commissioners stated that in their-opinion "the monopoly obtained by conferences usinz the system: ot deferred rebates has in certain' cases enabled conferences to place rates on a higher level than they would but for he system have been able to lf.% a^r ?t 5?, an T', a P ossibl ° fa" in rates. 1 hey did not however, consider that the evidence enabled them to determine whether the rates charged were excessive •or unfair. - As regards of trade, the report stated that in the South African and. Australasian trades at any rate the lower rates which . have ■ from time to time existed have resulted in the divertt°u' i c°f d t ers f J om Great Britain to the United States of America, and that thero is a permanent possibility of diversion owing to the low rates which the comfec° nS f ? nd . trust 3ia the 'Un'led rods A menca can demand for their (/«?♦'& de l'-? ? with ,' complaints made of certain arbitrary acts by the South fe'kT^? 0 ?' th * commissiohers stated that in their opinion "the actions of (he conference in these matters 4em tojs to show that the. members of the H h££ ™?Vi e d TlP art me of l**i n &f? 1 ? Ij ;,. not - been B ' iv e to, or V,* 01IS > m««t,.tho wishes of the South African communities, - but that for ho purpose of preserving their monopoly and resisting change they have not attained from playms off. the interests of one colony against those of another."