LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3114, 19 June 1917, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE SHIPPING MERGER

Sir,—Tour voluminous correspondent "Treeman" says in effect that the In ion Steam Ship Company has been built up by the people of New Zealand. Ihe consolidated revenue has directly turnishod them with profitable subsidies, and the citizens of the Dominion b>; equally profitable rates of freight anil passage money have indirectly provided the treasure that, made a shipping company of world-wide reputation, 'treeman" wants to see this condition ot tilings perpetuated; 1, for one, do not. The capital that controls the Cnion Company appears mainly to.belong to residents outside the Doiniuion. It would lie interesting to know how much of it belonged to Germany. Fritz, likewise Rudolph, had a. keen ecent for good things of this nature, especially in British 'territory. Let us hope, however, that the dividends the people of this Dominion famished have gone into British pockots. It. would not,take a follow of the Society of Accountants very long h> show that, exclusive of subsidies, the coastal or domestic trade of New Zealand alone for quite a long time has furriished this company with .£IOO,OOO or more per annum more than would have paid current interest on the capital invested, after allowing for all necessary depreciations and reserves.

.Vow our various administrations have submitted to this (or over twenty years, end ail that we got out of it was the name and fame of having a large shipping undertaking identified with tho Dame of Now Zealand. There is no i'ool to equal tho fool who cannot benefit by experience. New Zealand with its great length of coastline, its geographical position, in the Pacific, and its natural resources, marks it out as a maritime, country with a maritime destiny. '.Iho development of Pacific oversea commerce is hurtling forward, and it does not require a prophet of high degree to sco that in fifty or one hundred years there is a groat destiny awaiting the peoples on its shores. "Get your distaff ready. God , will send the flax," was a maxim of my forbears, and tho Government of the day that will not provide for the future in this respect for its people is negligent, one might almost assert, to the borders of imbecility. Our Aberdeen friends liaro another saying, vulgar, maybe, but expressive: "We'll Keep our ain fish guts for our ain eea maw." Now exit the Union. Company, and let us proceed to lay tho foundation of our maritimo career ,011 tho same lines as built the mercantile- marine of Great Britain. Lot some statesman introduce a Bill to conserve the coastal trade of New Zealand to New Zealand capital. Make clear the principle of tho single ship company, and. if need be. instead of allowing the profits incidental to our sea transport lo (low into the coffers of the P. and O. Company, have theia retained in tho "Dominion, even to the extent of subsidising New Zealand-owned ships for a. few years until we grow a generation of New Zealand shipping managers, who will take' their place among the best who now control tho trade of the world. Tt is the shipping managers of Great Britain who are the objects of German hato to-day, and have been for forty years past. That we have the material in. meii goes without question; theiheads of the Union Company\ha-vo proved it. But tho calamity of one company dominating tho whole trade results obviously in having a regiment of automatons to act at tho order of one brain. And so ono arm of our future development is atrophied, withered, and decayed under the immediate past conditions. Investment by tho peoplo of this Dominion in single ship companies would awaken in them the interest in shipping trado that has been the salient characteristic of Britain's commercial supremacy. With our own sailow, our own managers, fostered into "being by a policy as suggested in performing our own domestic work, the vision would soon enlarge, because commerce is simply takingthings from the place 3 where they are plentiful to where they are scarce. Our large surplus of foodstuffs would soon bo carried to the ends of the earth in our own. ships, manned by our own men.—l am, etc., AEISTIDBS.