SHIPPING OUTLOOK

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 171, 7 April 1923, Page 16

SHIPPING OUTLOOK

BARRIERS TO IMPERIAL TRADE AMERICA’S AMBITION A comprehensive survey of trade and shipping was made in the annual report presented to the members of tho Liverpool Steam Ship Owners’ Association (states the “Morning- Post”). In an analyses of tho trade returns for last year, it is pointed out that some progress is at last being made towards the re-establishment of the nation’s oversea commerce on sqiind principles. “A great deal,” the report states, “could be done by increasing trade within tho Empire, provided the Dominions are as ready to buy our manufactures as they are to sdl to ns their produce. Empire commerce can never "bo increased by merely the shipment of the produce of tho Dominions to tliis country; such shipments must in great measure be balanced by goods bought by tho Dominions from us. As matters stand, the tariff duties imposed by some of tho Dominions upon our manufacturers amount to a charge far in excess of tho total cost of the carriage of tho goods. Australia, by debarring our shipping from her coasting trade, is depriving us of the opportunity of purchasing and paying for Australian produce in exchange for tho services we aro ready and able to rentier to her as shipowners. “But whatever is done to develop trade within tho Emp'-'.._ the United Kingdom could never exist on that trade alone. Practically _ none of our coal is taken by Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, tibo Cape, or Natal, as they all have their own supples, whilst before tho war the rest of the Empire only took about 4 per cent, of the total shipped.. Further, apart from tho restriction imposed by tariff regulations upon tho importation of our. manufactures, the limited populations within some of tho Dominions afford no sufficient market for tho sale of the' goods we must make and sell if our own population is to be ■supported at home. 'Western Australia claims that if her natural resources were developed, she could grow sufficient wheat to supply tho whole of tho United Kingdom ; but before Western Australia can put here wheat on tlie markets of the world, she must be ready to accept goods or sendees in exchange, and she has no population as in India, Argentine, or Eastern Europe, whose needs as consumers must bo supplied.

United Stales Shipping Bill. “International commerce is not, and cannot be, the exclusive concern of any individual trader or of. any individual nation, and it is on this broad ground that the association has protested against the proposals that have been under consideration in the United States during the past rear.- It is, beyond, the shadow of a doubt, within the competency of the United States to grant any subsidy or bounty, it pleases to its own merchant shipping. The justification for such grants is almost always based on the plea, that tho national ships are operated at greater cost than vessels under other flags, and it is the object of tho grant to place them on a footing of, equality ivith other shipping, without relieving them from tho obligation to incur the extraordinary cost. Whether the plea is substantiated, and the remedy likely to prove effective, is for each nation to decide for itsblf. “On the other hand, it is pointed out, any attempt to go further, as was suggested in t.ho proposals that have been under discussion in tho United States, by penalising in its ports the slr'ps of other nations, raised entirely different considerations. All such penallies are designed to drive tho ships of other flags out of the freight market, and if they attain their object a monopoly is secured for the national ships in commerce which essentially is not national, but international'. When this point is reached, the national ships will become the masters and ceaso to bo the servants of ■ all the oversea commerce with the country by which the monopoly has been conferred, a position which will be jntolerable to all the nations participating in that commerce, and disastrous to its main ten unce and development“Any attempt to keep all international trade with the United States for vessels under tho American flag, by penalising in its ports vessels under other flags, would react disastrously on the American shipowners. Every voyage in such trade must either start or end in a country other than the United States, and in all t-hoso ports the American shipowners -would be exposed to the risk of retaliatory measures directed to offset the disabilities imposed on foreign vessels in United States ports. ■’

“Sea Power.” “It would appear to tho association at tho moment that some nations are disposed to attach undue importance to the possession of a mercantile marine, and that in grqat measure that feeling has been created by tho introduction of the term “sea power” into the relations between merchant shipping and overseas commerce. It is impossible to use tho term “sea power” without demoting some kind of force or compulsion, but international commerce must be carried on without force or compulsion. Within its territories a State may conceivably compel its citizens to buy and sell, but world commerce is the sum of innumerable transactions effected all over the world between willing buyers and willing sellers. The carrying facilities afforded by merchant ship's are sold and bought in exactly the same way as coal or wheat, and it is an error to suppose that the possession by a 'nation of the ability’ to provide such carrying facilities creates any power differing from that created by the possession by any other nation oi’ tho ability to provide thq cargo to be carried. In both instances the ability to provide, no doubt,-confers power on the possessor, but it is in no sense such a power as that termed 'sea. power.’" At tho most it confers the power to bargain, that is, thel power to sell if a willing purchaser can be found. “In war, merchant ships can be used to maintain ‘sea power,’ in so far as they aro employed to provision and equip the fighting fleets, or as military transports; but in war, as in peace, the employment of merchant ships as cargo carriers is absolutely in tho hands of tho shippers of their cargoes. The nations controlling any substantial proportion of the shipments of the food and of the raw materials of which the world stands in need,, have in their hands'a far more formidable power than that conferred by the mere possession of cargo-carrying shins. So long as equality of opportunity is given to all ships, under all flags, in all ports, the international trafle of no nation need be limited or controlled to tho carrying power of its own mercantile marine.”