FIGHT FOR LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 147, 19 December 1933, Page 11

FIGHT FOR LIFE

BRITISH SHIPPING

NEED OF PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

CONFERENCE URGED

>' British shipping is fighting tor its life. I; believe that only the Empire, acting as a single whole, can save it. That is why I am urging an, early Imperial Conference to consider tho ways and means of instituting a common Empire shipping polity and nothing else, •writes Sir' Abo Bailey in the "Daily Mail."

This question, has been brought by the action of the South African Government in granting a subsidy of £150,p00 a year to tho Italian linos •with the idea of retaining and increasing its meat trade with Italy. I have denounced that action, and I mean to go oh denouncing it, as fatal to that eooperaiiion between all the units in tho British Commonwealth of nations which :S essential to their prosperity.

British shipping takos first place in our national, our international, and our Imperial services and interests. The very existence of the Empire depends more en shipping than on anything else. Before tho war British ships carried about 52 per cent, of the world's sea-borne trade. Today they carry hardly moro than 40 per cent. ,Sihce 1914 such countries as Sweden, Holland, Franco, Spain, Denmark, and Gredce have doubled or very nearly doubled their sea-going tonnage. Italy and, Norway have more than doubled theirs. Japan shows a still greater increase, and the United States has, on papir, a Mercantile Marino five times as j;rcat as beforo tho War. Britain, on the other hand, has some 300,000 toni less than in 1914.

On all Oceans and on nearly all routes British shipping has now to ni6<t tho competition of heavily subsidised foreign vessels. These vessels will never pay their way on an cconomie baas. They were built and are being operated *t the taxpayers' expense for th« sake of "prestige" and to foster hone industries. PIRATE VESSELS. "the subsidy is the submarine of commerce. State-aided ships, like ''dumped go»ds,' J disrupt tho market and make Ordinary commercial operations unprofitable. Foreign nations are spending soiSe £30,000,000 a year on subsidising the building or tho running of theiie "pirate" vessels. Meanwhile, our giant Ciinarder remains idle on. the e^ks and threatens to becomo tho Bridge of tho shipping world.

the State-aided foreigner is cutting •with deadly destruetivcness into British shipping, not only on the main routes, bu< also in the inter-Iriiporial carrying trßde. Within tho last few days Italian vessels have boon chartcrod to ldad grain from Australia to Europe at totally uncommercial rates with which British. OV^u'eis-cannot even pretend to compete. Another Italian ship not long ago completed a round voyage ontiroly within the British Empire. Hbr tour of 13,000 miles earned her a gratuity of more than £1100 from tho Italian Government, and this onabled her to undercut British ships at every British port she touched. The sugar growers of Mauritius.aro given*a preference of somo £4 per ton in the United Kingdom market. But .th£ir sugar is being increasingly brdiight hero by subsidised Italian Ships. ... STfcOKES OF POLICY. Or look at the Indian trade, the historic preserve of the P. and C. ' The Italians have put on the Genoa-Bombay route a new ship for which the Government found most of the money and for which it pays the Suea Canal dues. This vessel is being largely patronisod by British officers and civil servants in India for their voyage home, though ther passage money is provided for them by the Government —that is to aay> by the British taxpayer. British money ia thus being used by British Officials to support a heavily subsidised Italian ship against the vessels of One of the oldest and most famous of British shipping companies, I have no doubt that tho new 50,000----tonners, running direct to New York, rrill attract to the Italian ports much of the American freight and passenger traffic that formerly came to Great Britain and France.

Will, they pay? Will the motordriven. Neptunia on -the Trieste-South 'America routs pay? Or her sister ship Oceania?'

Nobody seems to earn whether they dd or not. These are not ships in.the ordinary sense. They are strokes of State policy. They are items in the MiisS6liai programme for putting Italy on the map. > All the leading countries in the World lave taken a hand in the mad game—• aU'except Great Britain. For'the past seven years, since the death of the Trade Facilities Act, no Governmental aid of ariy khid has teen extended to British shipbuilding. ' British owners, apparently, would Hot have it otherwise. They hat& the Whole policy Of subsidies, bounties, and dis* criminations, Free access to. an open freight market is their ideal. But that ideal is vanishing beneath their very noses. Not only Italy, but America, Ger* many, France, arid Japan have plunged into the subsidy business. In every direction British shipping finds itself squeezed and undercut. It is fighting a losing battle out of its own resources aganst the illimitable funds and faolli* ties placed by State after State at the service of its competitors. THE TVSVRE. What is to be the end of it? British rtwners hoped, at the World Economic Conference to persuade the other Governments to give up subsidies altogather, to leave shipping and shipbuilders alone, and to restore absolute equality of treatment to all ships under All flags in all ports. That hope they must How abandon. TFh<4 foreigners are not going to give up Aiibsidies. They are going to incrcaso them. Along present lines there is Sdthirig ahead of British shipping but a, continuous and cumulative process of attrition and decline.

In two respects they may themselves be contributing to this process, A British vessel in 1892 made tho trip from England to Gape Town in fourteen days. Tdday, forly»ono years later, tho same Voyage takes seventeen days. That, looks W mo liko' for it." Again, the policy cf selling old but still seaworthy ships to competitors abroad, whd ■will operate them on lower ■wages, cheaper food, and smaller crews seefiifl one of very doubtful wisdom. A British ship that has come to the end of its usefulness undor the Red Ensign is best broken up.

British shipping has waited too long for the World to become sane again. Attacked 6n every side by economic fanatics, it must organise for its own defence, and it must call in its friends— in this case the peoples and Governments of tho Empire—-who tvill follow a cleatl lead and support a united policy, but who alsb, if left to themselves, may do as South Africa lias done. That is why an Imperial Conference, summoned to consider nothing but tho shipping problem, is urgent and vital.

Such bt ttia cable news on this pago as la M h«4fied ilas appear^ in "The Times" and is ensita. to Australia ana w«» Zealand w #«!*! JWffiiSsiaß, If, rtjauld bfl tindßffttoflrl tM»t the opinions are Hot those ot "The Thiiea" mrieas expressly states -Jo- -bo-jag