SUBORDINATE ZEAL

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 49, 26 August 1921, Page 6

SUBORDINATE ZEAL

The Imperial Shipping Committee, which figures in a cablegram published to-day, will take a big step towards justifying its existence if it prevents w penalisation " by shipping " conference " lines. These terms, notwithstanding their euphemism, carry back the mind to the days of the American crusade against "rings" and "rebates." After all that has been written, legislated, and litigated, has anything been done in America to kill the secret rebate and the various other forms of differential treatment of competing businesses, whereby the favoured one prospered and the condemned firm was driven to the wall? In the United States is still witnessed the spectacle of a Federal Commission of high standing, if not of judicial standing/ finding an adverse verdict against certain firms on the ground of trust tactics; but when it new political Administration comes to office, it repudiates the Commission's report and champions, the alleged offenders. Such incidents, and general experience, weaken confidence in the power of any Government or Commission or

Committee to control unfair interference with market conditions, and with competing businesses. If the "Australian and New Zealand Conference," under the eye of the Imperial Shipping Committee, abstains from directly or indirectly penalising or threatening to penalise shippers who do not give all their business to the "conference" lines, so far so good. But the zeal of those subordinates mentioned in the cablegram will remain an uncertain factor.