The Dominion. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1935. BRITISH SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 69, 14 December 1935, Page 10

The Dominion. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1935. BRITISH SHIPPING IN THE PACIFIC

Among the unsolved external problems inherited by. the. New Zealand Labour Government is that of shipping competition in the Pacific, which has been brought to a head by the. decision of the P. and O. Company to withdraw the present Union Line service from Sydney and Wellington to San Francisco, kept running hitherto on a four-weekly time-table by the Makura and the’Maunganui. It cannot be said that the P. and 0. Company has acted without warning. When the chairman, the Hon. Alexander Shaw, was here last year, he laid before the then Government the position of the Union Steam Ship Company (a unit in the P. and O. system) in its endeavoui to maintain the Pacific services to San Francisco and Vancouver m face of heavily-subsidised American competition: competition, nioieover, which, although it eats into the trade between British ports (New Zealand and Australian) in the South Pacific, enjoys a statutory monopoly of the trade between United States ports (Honolulu and San Francisco) in the North Pacific. On the British side, four Governments are concerned—the New Zealand, Australian, Canadian and United Kingdom—-and this has tended to delay negotiations. One either cannot, or does not care to, act without the others. Especially is this so of the Australian and New Zealand Governments, and so far their efforts to reach common ground have been unsuccessful. Mr. Forbes and Mr. Coates were no doubt reluctant to embark on a policy of, as Mr. Shaw puts it, “meeting subsidy with subsidy”; and their reluctance vi be shared by Mr. Savage and his Munster of Finance, Mr. Nash. At the same time, the loss of one of these Pacific steamer seiyices cannot fail to bring home to people and Government alike the seriousness of the outlook. Indeed, there is already a threat from Canada that the second—the Vancouver-Auckland service—will be withdraw n “unless the Governments of the three Dominions give more adequate support.” This would mean the end of the famous All-Red mai route Home, and would be as disturbing to the British Imperial as to the three Dominion Governments directly affected. _ For that matter, all shipping between British Empire countries is ot Imperial concern; and the situation in the Pacific has now reached a point sufficiently serious to warrant the Dominions Office approaching Canada, Australia and New Zealand and asking for immediate consultation on what may be the most desirable action to take not to assist a British shipping company, nor to penalise a foreign one; not to penalise a friendly foreign Government (at any rate, not more than it now penalises British shipping), but to keep the Red Ensign on the Pacific route for the carriage of passengers and mails.