EMPIRE SHIPPING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 129, 28 November 1923, Page 9

EMPIRE SHIPPING

IMPROVING THE SERVICE

BY SPEEDING UP VOYAGES

WORK OF THE IMPERIAL SHIP-

PING COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the Imperial Economic Commission. Sir Halford Mackinder, chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee, opened the general discussion on shipping communications with a statement aa to the work of the committee. Following i 3 a summary of the report of the speech officially supplied to the "Daily Telegraph." At tha outset, Sir Halford Mackinder recalled that the committee originated in a resolution passed at the 1918 Conference. It was both representative of the whole Empire, and it was also, within limits, expert. There was some delay after the 1918 Conference because there were negotiations in regard to the constitution of the committee, and the committee did not get to work until the autumn of 1920. Since that time there had been sixty meetings of the full committee, many meetings of sub-committees, and a certain number of conferences' between parties in dispute, over which he had presided as the impartial chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee, Recognising their limitations, they decided very early in the history of the committee ( that it was necessary that they should set to work in order to accomplish two things; in the first place that, if possible, they should always be unanimous. He was glad to say that all the reports from time to time sent to the Prime Ministers had been, as a fact, unanimous. The other matter on which they had to steer with great care was in regard to outside authorities and interests. It was quite obvious that dealing with such matters as they had to deal with thfl Departments of various Governments might feel that they were infringing on their spheres.. The shipowners also were very suspicious— naturally they felt that they had their fill of Goveninient interference during the war and immediately afterwards—and. therefore they had to steer very carefully so as to acquire goodwill. He .thought he was justified in saying that they had succeeded in obtaining the goodwill of the shipowners. ■ . Sir Halford continued: "We started by taking up that portion of our reference . which directed us to survey the facilities for shipping within the Empire We took a certain amount of evidence. We sent out questionaires, and in the course of about sis months we compiled a considerable amount of information, which has undoubtedy been useful since; but then two thm 2 s happened Un the one hand, we began to find that the whole of the shipping world was in such a state of flux, was so busy recovering from the disorder into which it had been thrown by the war. that it was hopeless to think that we should be able to make any general report for a considerable time to come which would not be out of date before it had actually been presented: and then on the second hand we found that about the end of six months we were overwhelmed with com- ' plaints, and it was necessary to turn to the part of our " reference.. Undoubtedly in the shipping world there was a considerable amount of irritation as the result of the conditions during the war. That irritation was not only on the part of the shipowners, who had been greatly- interfered with, but it was also on the part of the shipper associations, the producers in various part* of the Empire, who found that they had not the facilities that they would have liked for sending their produce over the seas, or that they had to pay _too highly, as they thought, for the sen-ice of shipping, and in addition, of course, there were also Government complaints against shipowners. But at any I rate there was a state of irritation, and my colleagues and I felt that under all the circustances we could not do better i than to turn our attention to the allaying of that irritation which we felt to have certain elements of danger i n it. It did not make for friendship within the Empire, and might in conceivable circumstances ripen into a condition of things which on e would not like to con-, template. We kid ourselves out then to try and smooth down these ences"NOT A TRUCE, BUT A PEACE." "The next great question that came before us, continued Sir Halford, "had regard to deferred rebates. There was a cerWacutenesg in the di ts j mmn _ diately after the war. That was due to cne iact of Government ownership of merchant shipping. The question came before us m the first instance mainly on a representation from the Australian Commonwealth Government. There was a quarrel—l think we may to-day now that peace has been arrived at, use that expression—there was a quarrel between' the Commonwealth Government Line and the Australian Conference of Steamship Lines. That quarrel, of course involved a great many p 0 n ts, but the matter' aa brought before us turned on the question of deferred rebates. The Australian Government Line could not give rebates; it was forbiden to do so by Commonwealth legislation. Ihe Australian Conference of Shippine Lines stuck tenaciously'to its practice of giving rebates, on the outward voyage of course, but inasmuch as the round voyage is the unit of shipping, that had trtde" 5Per °ÜBSIOn °n homeward After dealing at length with the ne^otiations, Sir Halford Mackinder said that a report was drawn up unanimously and was dispatched to the Prime Ministers. He continued: "We allow nor. mally eh weeks in order that the report may reach New Zealand, the most distant of the Dominions, before it becomes public. In that six weeks one morning I read my newspaper at breakfast and I found that the Commonwealth Government Line had suddenly cut down its rates, and that it was expected that withm another day or two the Conference Lines would reply with a still more drastic cut; .n other words, we were probably m for a rate war. This was J n utl\\ midd- 16 °f l ast whlter- lat once felt that smce these two parties had been before us, and, indeed, were rerire sented within the Imperial ShipnW Committee itself, the 'position had an element of the ludicrous in it, and in any case was most undesirable Them was no time to be fost; issue'had not been joined; that is to say, the Conferthefr rates 3 repHed by CuttinS "I therefore at once got on to the telephone and asked the two parties if they would meet me I subsequent^ had condonation fromthe Imperial Shipping Committee. Well, when they met I found that the issue between them was in regard to the detailed application to the Australian trade of the general prin ciples that we.had come to. My hope was to get a truce, and I trusted that if I could get a truce the. publication of our report would put such public pres sure on the two interests that such a rate war would be impossible. We sat for four hours. The ice was very hard and cold to begin with, but gradually the thaw came on. and finally the ice broke mid we achieved not a truce but L a peace. .The other day, knowing jh»t I

was to speak to you, I thought it would be interesting to obtain from the two parties, who are now friends, a statement of the present position, and I will read a letter which has been addressed tome by Sir Kenneth Anderson, the chairman of the Orient Line, on behalf of the Conference Lines, and Mr. Eva, who is the representative in London of the Commonwealth. Line:—'Dear Sir Halford, —In reply to the question you have addressed to us we are glad to say that the optional system of rebate or agreement evolved in the Australian trade as a result of the inquiry by the Imperial Shipping Committee into the rebate system is working satisfactorily. The form of agreement as originally introduced has already been signed, by over 800 firms, and now that certain amendments are about to be made to meet the wishes of the Merchants' Association, and the document, subject to these, has been formally approved by them, it may be anticipated that the number of firms adopting the agreement alternative will be increased.—Yours sincerely, (Signed) Kenneth,S. Anderson, E. A. Eva:' EXAMPLE TO. TRADE. "There are about 1500 firms shipping in this trade, I understand, so that already more than half of them have agreed to abandon the rebates and to accept the agreement, and since a further number are likely now to come in— the amendments have been adopted only within the last few days—l think it probable that at least three-quarters of the trade will have availed themselves of the offer which we induced the two interests to put before them. I hope that the freedom which we obtained will have resulted in a settlement, at any rate in that trade, of this long-vexed question. I hope that the example may spread through the trade of the Empire generally." , Dealing with smaller questions, Sir Halford said that in the case of certain of the West Indies they were appealed to to obtain reductions of freight, and he was glad to say that in certain cases they wore able to induce the ship owners to listen to the complaint; in other cases they were not able to effect a reduction, but a full statement of the reasons why it could not be done was communicated to the commercial units concerned, and they heard no more. He had received from the Chamber of Shipping a series of three resolutions with regard to high port charges, light dues, pilotage, and quarantine expenses at the Australian ports,- with regard to light dues levied by State Governments in Australia as distinct from the Federal Government, and with regard to light dues in New Zealand. The questions were of an intricate character, and he was going to throw out a suggestion that perhaps Mr. Bruce himself—or if he was too busy he would nominate someone else—would perhaps like to meet some representatives of the Chamber of Shipping, and if so he (Sir Halford) would organise a little meeting- in order that these very detailed questions affecting not the whole Empire but-simply a particular portion of the Empire might be gone into in a practical way, and perhaps Mr. Massey would do the same thing with regard to New Zealand. Remarking that the committee had to consider how they could better the services within the Empire as well as remove sources of friction, Sir Halford Macinder- continued: "We came to the conclusion that the only way in which you could hope to carry passengers and mails rapidly within the next generation from certain portions of the Empire to tha central parts of the world would be by a combination of air, sea, and land, and we have proposed to you a system whereby you will save a week in | the carriage of mails and first-class passengers between London on the one handi and Melbourne and Sydney on the other hand. You are to save four days by airship from this country to Egypt; twol days on the Indian Ocean by speeding up a little the steamships on that ocean; and one day by saying a certain amount of time which at present is lost at Fremantle before the train starts, and perhaps a little on the transcontinental journey. I can assure you as one who has sailed for a certain distance in an airship that it is the most comfortable form of travelling that ever was imagined— quite different from aeroplane travelling. "There may be technical difficulties to be got over; that is not the business of the Imperial Shipping Committee; we take the advice of the Air Ministry here. On all technical matters we should not. presume to express an opinion. But the net effect is that we have made that report, and, as has been stated in Parliament, here the British Government have accepted the portion of it which refers to. airships, and I understand that subject to endorsal and perhaps to negotiations in this conference, the endeavour will be made to supply that service at no distant date. Shipping companies on the Indian Ocean have already shown what they can do in hastening up their steamers, and I venture to say on behalf ' of the committee that we hope it will be considered that we have done a more practical thing in trying to save a week in that way than by suggesting to you what was originally put' to us, namely, that you should pay a subsidy sufficient to give you a service of steamers comparable with the service of steamers which.you find on the North Atlantic. "Broadly, the position is that British shipping to-day is struggling," continued Sir Halford. "The mercantile marine of the Empire proved its value from the point of view of defence during the war. There is an excess of tonnage in the world to-day. Very small profits, if any. are being made by the ship owning community. There may, of course, be exceptions. Therefore, we have ventured to hurry forward for your attention a matter upon which we were asked to report by the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom and by the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association. It regards the levying of income tax on shipping throughout the Empire. I am not going into detail; the detail will be presented to the Prime Ministers as soon as ever the printers will supply us with copies of the report. We have not ventured to make a definite recommendation, but we have presented certain alternatives. We have not ventured to give a definite recommendation for the reason that there were involved, purely financial questions, questions of the amount of revenue which different parts of the Empire thought it necessary to raise, and we do not feel that it was right for us to go into that. But, broadly speaking, we have arrived at the conclusion that the variety of methods of assessment throughout the Empire is, in fact, an impediment to commerce. The Imperial Shipping Committee sits regularly, and I- believe that it has this great advantage—l claim it—that whereas a Royai Commission or other body has this question or that question referred to it and is an ad hoc body, and has as such to go into all manner of preliminary matters, we have a group of gentlemen who are in the habit of acting together, who have acquired the habit of unanimity, who represent different parts of the Empire, and who can shorten investigation because they are able to take a great many things as already proved."