WORLD'S CARGOES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 82, 3 October 1936, Page 9

WORLD'S CARGOES

FIGHTING FOR A SHARE

PLIGHT OF BRITISH SHIPS

FOREIGN PRESSURE

When outlining the importance to Imperial defence of our mercantile marine recently, I pointed out that it was just as essential to feed the garrison as to man the ramparts, writes Lord Lloyd in the "Daily Telegraph." This is the primary duty of the merchant fleets. This is why their efficiency and sufficiency is, 3S I believe, one of the most urgent problems now confronting us. While other nations, have in the last j twenty years enormously increased j their resources of merchant tonnage, | we alone, with the exception of Germany, have to record a' decline. British ships now carry, far less of Ihe world's sea-borne trade than in the years before the war. Yet this country, more than any other, is dependent for her very life upon the safe arrival of her supplies from overseas, and British ship owners, officers, and seamen are still the finest in the world. Nevertheless, since 1914 British tonnage has declined, on the Government's own showing, from 18,000,000 to 17,000,000 gross tons. In the last five years there has been a reduction in United Kingdom shipping of no less than three million tons. DECREASE IN TRADE. Lord Zetland, speaking for the Government on this question in the debate in the House of Lords on July 30, said that the governing factor in the situation was the. decrease in world trade. But though this is true and would explain a general reduction of world tonnage proportionate to the reduction of world trade, it does not explain why the proportion of that trade carried in British ships has fallen be•tween 1913 and the present time from 44 per cent, to 28 per cent. There is an explanation. It is that whereas other maritime nations quite frankly look upon their merchant shipping as a second line of defence, and take steps to maintain it as such, we alone —to whom more than any other • our merchant ' navy is our. life—have left our ship owners to bear the burden of decreased trade, foreign subsidies, and discrimination almost entirely unaided by governmental support. This alone can explain why, while British tonnage has decreased between 1914 and 1936 by 9 per cent., Japanese tonnage on the same basis has in-1 rreased by 146 per cent.. American by 365 per cent, and other Powers by percentages varying between 29 per <ient. in the case of Spain to 109 per cent, in the case of Greece. How, then, has this deplorable change come about? DAYS OF WORLD WAR. The story eoes back to the days of the Great War, which taught foreign nations the enormous political and economical importance of a national cargo-carrying trade. Since those days other nations have built up merchant services which free them from dependence on British bottoms and have filched from this country the trade of carriers in which it was once predominant, i ■ By what means has this revolution been accomplished? How has this uneconomic competition for the' freightage of the world's goods been maintained, and in recent years intensified? British ships, as recent instances have made quite clear even to the casual student of affairs, have been driven from the trade routes of the world because the merchant fleets of other nations, heavily subsidised by their Governments and protected by varying forms of discrimination, have been enabled to carry merchandise at rates in themselves totally \ unremunerative. And even when these instances, have been brought to the notice of the British Government by myself and others no adequate steps have been taken to equalise conditions of trade. Take for instance ihe case of the two British lines trading between Australia and New Zealand and the western seaboard of the United States and Canada. These two lines must shortly cease to operate altogether, thus for . the first time sundering our "all-red" route and leaving the regular fast trans-Pacific trade entirely in the hands of foreign competitors. \ CAN NO LONGER COMPETE. The reasons are simple. Private ship owners can no longer compete from their own resources against the full strength of the American . Government, which has subsidised the building of new and fast cargo liners, granted running subsidies under the guise of mail contracts, and reserved to its own ships exclusively the trade between the United States and Hawaii, while unfettered competition continues in the purely British trade between Australia and New Zealand. As long ago as 1932 the attention of the Imperial Conference at Ottawa was drawn 1o these facts, and their inevitable outcome, yet it was not until a few weeks, ago after I had raised the matter in the House of Lords that any definite action was taken. And then that action was limited to the reference of the whole question to the Imperial Shipping Committee. Take again the question of BritishRussian trade to the Baltic and Black Seas. Russia has used her monopoly of foreign trading to eliminate altogether British liner services which used to do nearly all that trade, and has flouted minimum freight arrangements, with the result that during the first half of 1936 British shipping was practically excluded from the carriage of Russian timber from the Baltic to this country. For example, of 18 ships discharing timber in the United Kingdom in June this year, not one was British. As a result of representations made by the British Chamber of Shipping through the Board ,of Trade, Russia has offered to charter a quantity of British tonnage during the remainder of the present timber season, But this Is not enough. The Chamber of Shiping has no doubt secured the best terms it can, but it is clearly not right that the business of .haggling with a powerful foreign Government should be left to that industry which is the victim of this foreign Government's policy of economic nationalism. DRIVING THEM OUT. Thus it will be seen that in one case American subsidies and in another Russian restrictions are driving British ships! from trade routes developed and for long maintained by British enterprise, while the British, Government remains little more than a lukewarm spectator. Such instances coujd be paralleled in every sea of the world.

The Japanese, for instance, are not only increasing their competition and their power to compete by enormous subsidies, but are preparing to build a great addition to the number of their cargo boats. In addition, currency depreciation and low wages operate to the advantage'of Japanese shipping.

But the principal factor is the active Interest of the Japanese Government in the development of its merchant marine. That is, indeed, the factor in

jail comparisons with foreign Governments. They have foreseen the economic and strategical value of their mercantile marine. They have based their policy on their own needs, and, because successive Governments in this country haye remained inert, they have in so doing struck British shipping an almost mortal blow.

Quite recently the French Government has passed a further ordinance reserving yet more of her import trade to her own shipping, to the detriment of British tramps. There are specific instances which might be multiplied again and again. For example, of the ships discharging Swedish and Norwegian timber in the United Kingdom on June 23, i 4 were Swedish, eight were Norwegian, and only two were British. Yet the timber was purchased and the freights paid by British merchants. Here again national interests are operating to the disadvantage of British shipping. THE TWO PROVISIONS. In face of this deadly menace to our Imperial security, the Government have produced two measures for which they take great credit—a subsidy of £2,000,000 for tramp steamers, and the famous "scrap and build" policy. Mountains have been in labour, and on this occasion have again produced but mice. The subsidy is in many cases insufficient even to pay depreciation. The "scrap and build" policy is unpopular with ship owners and of questonable value. The extent of the handicap imposed on British ship owners and the triviality of the assistance so far given by the Government were illustrated by Lord Zetland in the House of Lords when he said, "If this country were to think of granting subsidies to its shipping on anything like the sort of level that those subsidies! are granted to their shipping by the chief other countries, the annual cost to the taxpayer in this country would be something like £21,000,000." Even this would be a small price to pay for security, apart altogether from the increased employment and services which we should gain,

But British shipping does not ask primarily for subsidies. It asks only that where, by subsidies or other Government aids, foreign countries are making it impossible for British shipping to . survive, our Government should take whatever is considered in each case to be the appropriate action tq preserve equality of opportunity and treatment for British nationals.

This surely is little enough to ask— fair play for an industry which in times of peace is one of our greatest commercial assets, and in time of war the very essence of our defence forces.

There is no time to be lost by committees, conferences, and evasions. From the industrial point of view the Government's inaction in this sea affair is unfortunate. From the point of view of the safety of the Empire it may well be disastrous.