CHEAP FREIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 86, 8 October 1920, Page 7

CHEAP FREIGHTS

AUSTRALIAN LABOUR ATTACK OF JAPANESE SHIPS (UNITED PRB3J ASSOCIATION.—COPTMGIIT.) (Received October 8, 10 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The Transport Workers' Federation has decided that from the beginning of next month no members of affiliated unions will be allowed to work on overseas Japanese vessels engaged in carrying cargo from one State to another. The alleged ground for the decision is that their cheaper freights will secure more trade for the Japanese, and decrease the work available for Australian sepmen.

[Only two New Zealand firms, one at Auckland and another at D\medin, are interested in the employment of Japanese boats between Newcastle and New Zealand. It is understood that some of the Japanese boats' at present engaged have been chartered for two, three, four, or even five trips. The employment of Japanese boats has not tended to lower the freight rate betwen New Zealand and Newcastle, but it may have had that effect in the Australian coastal trade. Japanese boats have demanded a- freight as high as £3 per "ton between Australia, and New Zealand, but the average freight paid has been about £2 10s a ton* as against 25s per ton charged by the Union Steam Ship Company. The employment of Japanese boats, when no others have been available., has certainly relieved the coal position in New Zealand, although it has made the coal expensive. The New Zealand Seamen's Federation has already protested against the' employment of Japanese steamers.]