“MODEST DIVIDEND”

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 74, 20 December 1933, Page 11

“MODEST DIVIDEND”

Operations of Orient S.S. Company CHAIRMAN’S REVIEW By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright(Received December 19, 9.50 p.m.) London, December 19. At the annual meeting of the Orient Shipping Company, Sir Alan Anderson, who presided, said the year’s operating profit was more than double that of the previous year, to which was added a profit of £40,000 from the sale of investments. The results, therefore, justify a modest dividend. “The only doubt which gave us pause in advising it, is that of the future,” he said. “We seem to have entered an epoch in which the best team rather than the best individual wins; an epoch of combination to maintain prices and restore trade. It is encouraging to notice the results of combined effort for the British Empire. If it had not been spectacular, it was all in the right direction, and the treaties which the Government has arranged with six nations all tend to ease the flow and restore the balance of our common trade. “Shipowners criticise one defect of these treaties, which do not condemn and forbid the unfair competition of foreign subsidies. I earnestly trust the Government will speedily convince those nations who join the British Empire world trade that fair play is as necessary in the exchange of shippingservices as of goods, and that Great Britain cannot afford to buy freely the goods of nations which set themselves to prevent Great Britain and her shipowners paying part of the bill in the form of shipping services, “A cure, is to be found by the Governments here and in the Dominions agreeing with other nations, first, that they want trade; next, on what principles they shall foster and conduct their common trade, and on these principles binding themselves together by mutual and exclusive most-favoared-nation treaties. Such a club of world trade should be large enough to restore the market and liberal enough to welcome to its ranks every nation observing its principles, among which should be freedom of the seas from national discrimination and uneconomic subsidies.

“One fact is clear: so long as we rely in peace time on farmers overseas to grow our food, so long must we have ships under our flag to carry that food In fvartime, and among them we requite an ample fleet of cargo ships of handy size. The shipping policy of the United Kingdom therefore Is more than a problem for seaman and shipowners. It concerns vitally the consumer here and the food producer overseas.”