The Shipping Crisis

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 95, 16 January 1935, Page 11

The Shipping Crisis

Sir, —The remarks, reported iu your issue of to-day, by Mr. E. 11. alts and Olliers at a recent meeting of the Royal Empire Society in London, while dealing with the dire position of,British shipping mainly from the point of view of the United Kingdom, are still very pertinent to the situation of local shipping between New Zealand and Australia. Here we have most ot the same elements. Tne impossible handicap placed on our shipping by State assistance to its foreign competitors, by reservation to the latter of certain trades, and by their lower rates—to the rank and tile at least —of wages; the same loss in our national trade balance through payment of fares and freights to foreigners, the same danger of insufficient shipping in the case of war, the same dearth of seamen, for possible naval and mercantile requirements. In all these points our position is much the same as at Home.

And yet nothing has been done about it. Only last week it was announced that one' of the passenger steamers running between New Zealand and Australia was to be withdrawn at the end of next month, a course which would not have been necessary if this intercolonial trade were protected for British shipping. The crew of thia vessel will be thrown out of work, her local expenditure on stores, harbour dues, repairs and in other ways will cease, thus affecting the livelihood of many others on shore. It is only to be reckoned that other cases will follow,, as shipowners can hardly be expected, to continue to run vessels at a loss, particularly when there does not seem any prospect of any alleviation. New Zealand and Australian Ministers recently conferred in Australia, but as far as one can judge their conversations on thia subject were no more successful than in other directions.

Why all this Imitation about helping your own? The case for the local vessels is unanswerable. They are competing on unfair terms with competitors whose principal asset is the help they get from their Government, either in a monetary form (amounting to about £300,000 a year) or through the reservation to themselves and other American vessels of one of the principal sections of trans-Facific trade, between Hawaii and the United States. In these days of hard-up Governments it is perhaps going too far to suggest that Australia and New Zealand might put up a countervailing subsidy, but at least they could redress the injustice under which our colonial vessels suffer through being attacked in their own home trade between Australia and New Zealand when they are unable to retaliate in the stronghold of the American line between Honolulu and California. In profound disregard for their countries’ interests and elementary justice, the Governments have allowed this to go on for three years and a half now. Probably at the end of another three years and a half they will still be thinking about it I —l am, etc., SHELLBACK. Miramar, January 15.