SEAMEN'S CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 45, 21 August 1913, Page 6

SEAMEN'S CONDITIONS

The Royal Assent having been given, the Australian Federal law compelling overse_a shipping, British and foreign, to observe Australian conditions of pay, manning, etc, while trading in Australian waters, should before long be in operation. It would, indeed, probably be in force now but for the decision of the Federal authorities to withhold the proclamation, bo that the shipping companies may have time to make the structural alterations necessary for accommodating the increased number of men in the way in which, under the new law, they must be housed and provided for. Meanwhile, there is a chorus of complaint from the oversea companies. It is true that the main principle of the Australian Act— coastal conditions in coastal trading— has long been in force in New Zealand, but Australia affects the oversea companies in a much larger way. Not only is our shipping very much less in volume, but it is also, proportionately, very much more under local ownership; and it is sufficiently self-contained to enable it to easily transfer increased cost on to the public, as we have seen. English companies trading to the East and in Australian waters, In keen rivalry iwith German, French, Japanese, etc., are in a* quite different position, and complain that the new conditions will handicap them in the sphere of international competition. To this complaint supporters of the Federal Navigation Act make the reply that any restrictions imposed in Australian coastal waters upon British shipowners will apply equally to foreigners. Further, it is claimed that there is an effective check upon unfair subsidised competition, in the provision that no British or foreign ihip shall carry pM-

sengers between Commonwealth port* unless she be licensed. In short, the argument is that if coastal conditions are forced upon oversea shipowners while engaged in coastal trade, they are forced upon all of them. But will the new privileges, which the oversea seamen are to enjoy in Australian waters, cease at the coastal limits? Perhaps it is the thin edge of the wedge that English shipowners fear, more than the actual immediate loss. All over the world the mercantile marine, wherever there is one, seems to rest upon working conditions which, to put it mildly, do not reflect the wopld-wide increase in the cost of living. The exception is the United States, which has practically no oversea shipping, and which maintains its coastal fleets by simply prohibiting other nations'" ships from competing. A report made to the United States Senate says that America cannot compete, as European countries do, on the basis of Japanese rates of pay; and if the mercantile marine conditions of Australasia spread throughout the Empire, British shipowners may be in the same plight. Behind the Commonwealth Act can be seen easily enough the world problem. An equality of treatment as required by the law in Australia would not be enforceable on the high seas.