TARIFFS AND SHIPPING

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 23, 27 July 1933, Page 12

TARIFFS AND SHIPPING

BRITAIN AND U.S.A.

THE NAVIGATION LAWS

The peculiar fact that British navigation laws were in tho process of reversion to the position in tho early part of last century was mado the base of an interesting review of the influence of tariffs upon shipping by the president of the Wellington branch of the British Sailors' Society (Mr. C. D. Morpeth) at its annual meeting last night. Befcrring to tho heavy subsidies carried by American ships, without which they could not compete in these waters, Mr. Morpeth said that this was no new thing for America, but was a reflection of navigation laws made consequent upon tho change in tariffs by Britain early last century. Britain was not then a Free Trade country, indeed, it was not until the days when Sir Bobert Peel was in power, from 1830 'to 1846, that Great Britain passed from being a protected country to become a Free Trade country. Up till that time the navigation Jaws had followed the tariff laws, and were similar to the laws enforced in the U.S.A. today. All trading privileges were then confined by Britain to British-owned and Britishmanned ships. This covered the British territory overseas, Crown colonies, as they then were. Up to that time the chief competitors of Great Britain Avere the Dutch, and America did not come into it at all. When the change took place in the policy of Great Britain from Protection to Free Trade, the navigation laws followed suit, the privileges accordedj only to British ships were abrogated, and the shipping trade was thrown open to all and sundry. Those were the days of wooden sailing ships. ' Between 1805 and 1860 America developed a pride in shipbuilding, and turned out many fine boats. The- whole of the eastern coast of the U.S.A. was devoted to shipbuilding, and tho same thing applied to Nova Scotia; indeed, the foirader of the famous Cunard Line was a Nova Scotian builder. These ships began to get a very large proportion of the carryjing trade of the world. FROM WOOD TO IRON. Between 1855 and 1860 a change came over the scene. Instead of wooden sailing ships the iron ships began to appear, and Great Britain, which could build the iron ships mora quickly and better than others, again assumed control of maritime trade. Just at that time the American. Civil War took place, and caused American shipbuilding to fall away, while Britain assumed the lead, once more obtaining complete charge of the ocean-going shipping. The years went on, the Atlantic races were inaugurated, and the blue ribbon of the Atlantic was contested. The British Government made a donation to the British-owned Cunard Company, and thus began in fact the principle of subsidising shipping, which really originated with Great Britain, but whereas the English had kept their ports open all those years while others had kept their closed, now that Great Britain had swung across from Free Trade to Protection, it might be found that Britain's old navigation laws might come back again.

"Even if they do not come back to the navigation laws of 1848," said Mr. Morpeth, "effective steps will be taken in the form of discriminating port dues, in order that things may be equalised, and without closed ports to other ships we may get the trade back into our hands," - ■

He spoke of the parlous state 'of the shipping industry, with 15,000,000 tons of shipping idle, whilo the rest was only working half-time, facts which added to the calls,' upon such institutions as the British Sailors' Society.