WORLD TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 94, 22 April 1935, Page 10

WORLD TRADE

CEEDITOE'S PAYMENT

GOODS AND SERVICES

Proposing a composite resolution at the annual meeting of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom in London, Sir Alan Anderson said that it was more than ever urgent that they should enforce the basic principle of trade—that the creditor must take payment in the only coin apparent in world trade —namely, goods and services, states the "Manchester Guardian."

"No clearer proof is needed," he said, "that if the world continues on its present course of buying freely from a creditor to whom it is not permitted to discharge its debts in goods and services the creditor can call for gold and spread a fresh epidemic of depreciation and bankruptcy through all those countries whose commerce is directly or indirectly linked with gold—and what countries are not?" The resolution, which was carried unanimously, proposed that the chamb_Q) er Deplores the failure of the nations to restore the principles on which alone the world's exchange can be maintained, trades can support currency, and millions now hungry can be enabled to consume the present glut of supplies. (2) Reaffirms that the great creditor nations hold the initiative in world exchange and that the continued failure of even one great creditor nation to accept such payment in goods and services as will offset its creditor position excites throughout the debtor world the instability and apprehension which lead to those mutual obstructions to the flow of trade and money by which no less than 23,000,000 men were thrown out of work in ten countries alone and the merchant shipping and shipbuilding industries are brought to the point of ruin; and (3) Urges'the Government with the persuasive force of the world's greatest buyer to induce the nations which desire trade, and particularly the creditor nations, to restore the principles by which the flow of goods and services can be enabled to maintain the monetary exchanges. FREIGHT LOSSES. Mr. L. C. Harris, in his presidential address, spoke of the subsidy of £2,000,000 for tramp shipping. It was, he said, "a very small dose" as compared with the subsidies to other industries, and he went on to contrast it with the effects of other subsidies in freight losses. These he estimated as follows:—Sugar: The loss in freight was £350,000 to £400,000 a year. Wheat: Imports in 1934 were about 500,000 tons less than in 1933, which, taking the Argentine rate of freight as an average, would have amounted to £375,000. Meat: In operation too short a time for the effects to be seen, but there were definite quotas restricting imports of foreign meat. Recently in the Australian trade refrigerated boats already on the berth were faced with a sudden cancellation of bookings for 315,000 carcasses owing to a new phase in the negotiations between Governments. Bacon: Imports had fallen by 30 per cent, in two years— from 11,400,000cwt in 1932 to 7,999,000 cwt in 1934—the loss of freight being estimated at some £200,000. INDUSTRY'S HEAVY LOSSES. Sir F. Vernon Thomson proposed that the chamber, in view of the disastrous state of the freight markets, which has for a long time involved the industry in heavy losses, and recognising the need for co-operative action by shipowners in order to improve this condition of affairs, welcomes the creation, by agreement between the Government and the industry, of machinery for promoting such co-operation nationally and internationally, and pledges itself wholeheartedly to the support of the Tramp Shipping Administrative Committee in their endeavours to this end.' '• He said he believed the time would come, with the removal of trade barriers, when the interchange of commodities throughout the world would be greater than ever. ' \ The resolution was carried with one dissentient—Councillor R. S. Dalgliesh (Lord Mayor of Newcastle). WORLD TONNAGE. Lord Essendon moved that, recognising that shipping could not prosper unless there were effected a fair approximation of supply of world tonnage to demand, the chamber welcomed the progress of the preliminary meeting of the International Shipping Conference. The disparity between world trade and the supply of shipping had brought about a state of things which made shipping an uneconomic proposition, he said.' . ' Referring to the recent preliminary international conference in London, Lord Essendon said that there it was pointed out that the time had arrived when shipowners of the world should cease carrying the goods of the world at less than cost. "I think that the preliminary conference showed that the foreign nations represented were,r on the whole, desirous of working out a practical scheme as quickly -as possible," he added. The resolution was carried.