ACTION NEEDED

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1933, Page 9

ACTION NEEDED

PLIGHT OF SHIPPING

PLEA FOR FAIR CHANCE

FOEEIGN SUBSIDIES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, November 7. Mr. Alexander Shaw, chairman of the P. and 0. and British India Steam Navigation Companies, and a director of the Bank of England, speaking at Galashiels last night, referred. to the plight of British shipping. Turning to the present position of the industry in Great Britain, Mr. Shaw said that in June, 1914, Great Britain owned nearly 44 per cent, of the seagoing tonnage of the world. In June, .1933, Britain's proportion of world shipping had fallen to 29 per cent. No Jess than 2,500,000 gross tons of British shipping was laid up because the conditions of today made it impossbile for those ships to remain in commission. So there was a glut of world tonnage coupled with. a severe relative decline in British shipping,, and a most serious problem of unemployment for our ships and sailors. .. The fact must be faced that even a great improvement in trade would not under present, conditions bring a cor- . responding improvement to British shipping. Improvement no doubt there would be, but not such an improvement as would ensure the safety of our maritime position. The roason for all this ■was clear. It was threefold—foreign subsidies for operating ships, foreign subsidies for building ships, and foreign restrictions on the shipping of other lands. The subsidies against which. British shipping had to contend had now reached the enormous total of over £30,000,000 per annum.COMPETITION OF rOEEKJN VESSELS. The tj-ade between Australia and New Zealand was a purely British trade between two British Dominions. It had been built up by British Empire shipping. Now the Empire ships which served that trade were running in the face of severe and continuous loss, simply because they were up against the wholly uneconomic competition of foreign vessels, highly subsidised by a foreign Government. Those subsidised ships were knocking out British shipping between these great British Dominions not because they were better manned or managed, but by virtue of the State aid they received. As a result it was impossible for the. British companies concerned to lay down new ships attd so give much-needed employment. Doing nothing! That was the only official policy up to date—a policy of allowing our Empire trade routes to be captured by foreign subsidised shipping. It was a policy of apathy, negation and neglect. Its logic 'was the logic of the lotus eaters, and its end was the luin of British shipping. History ■would reserve her lasting censure for those who idly allowed the links of Empire to bo broken up and by their blind apathy inflicted upon an Imperial people a humiliation worse than any defeat. ' PAMPERING NOT DESIRED. It was not too late now if we acted in time. The British mercantile marine wanted no special favours. It had never asked for subsidies at the expense of ,the taxpayers. The men engaged in it asked merely to be givon . something like a fair.. ciance'..'to keep the'Eed Ensign of Brit'ain'flying on the oceans of the world. .Given that chance, although battered now by adversity and weakened by loss, they were still capable of renewing their strength and of dedicating it to the service of the Empire and the world. « . . He hoped on a very early occasion to make a concrete suggestion for an active policy as a contribution to the discussion of the. problem of saving Empire shipping from foreign domination. Whatever policy was adopted to meet the danger must have behind it the' understanding and goodwill of British people all over the Empire. It would be vain to put forward a policy of pam" pering British shipping. Personally, although he might be wrong, he "would not like to see a policy by which shipping would become a charge, upon British taxpayers, unless as a last desperate resort to save our national position. But the. policy of giving a fair chance to.those who were putting up a good, fight, for Britain against great Odds should, appeal to the British sense of justice. "It is not too late now if we act in time," Mr. Shaw concluded. "British shipping, particularly in tho •inter-Empire spheres, is still fighting a gallant rearguard action; but its resources of strength are ebbing away. British shipping does not need to be pampered.. It can weather the blast of economic competition, but not tho dynamite of foreign subsidies."