AUSTRALIAN NAVIGATION.

Evening Star, Issue 12766, 20 March 1906, Page 7

AUSTRALIAN NAVIGATION.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. THE COMMISSION’S REPORT. SYDNEY, March 19. The report of the Navigation Commission recommends that preference be given to British shipowners and producers conditionally on ships being manned by a substantial proportion of British citizens and' canning cargoes whereof a substantial proportion is °* British manufacture or origin. They suggest that as the matter affects the whole Empire tbo question should receive con at the next Imperial Shippin* Conference, together with the desirability of uniform legislation extending to seamen the advantages of the various Workmen’* Acts. The Commission fine that Bntish seamen are fast disappearing, and recommend as a remedy numerous dras tic measures of reform, with a view t( rendering the conditions of service more at tractive. These include giving 120 cubi feet of air space per man, better ventila hon and lighting, hot and cold bathrooms certificated cooks, seamen to be entitled to receive at any port where the vessel calk tuo-thirds of their wages actually earned the abolition of advance and allotment notes ex fP{ wbere made in favor of relatives and the abolition of imprisonment for desertion. Maiming scales for vessels according to tonnage should be provided for officers, engineers, seamen, and firemen and compulsory insuranoe for seamen is recommended. A further recommendation is that pilots, except possibly in Torres Strait become public servants and be liable to the extent of £IOO for accidents due to their own fault. The report urges the Commonwealth to take over quarantining, lighthouses, etc. ; the coastal trade to be reserved for slups on the Australian register or ship? licensed as conforming to Austraban conditions (mail steamers between Adelaide and Fremantle to be exempted/; the total prohibition from the coastal trade of foreign-subsidised ships; the establishment of an Australian Royal Naval Reserve on lines similar to those adopted by the British Admiralty and Board of Trade, but modified to meet local conditions; provision for nautical scholarships at various ports; that it be made illegal to give rebates on freight when such rebates are conditional on tlio exclusion of shipping with certain vessels; a doctor must be carried by vessels conveying 100 passengers or over where the voyage exceeds five days; and the more stringent inspection of surveying vessels. The minority report deprecates the stringency of the recommendations concerning the coastal trade, and believes it is outside the province of the Commission to touch the question of preferential treatment to British shippers and producers. CRIMPING EXTRAORDINARY. EXTORTING “BLOOD MONEY.” SYDNEY,' March 20. (Received March 20, at 9.15 a.m.) The Commission’s report further' states that the evidence regarding crimping was of so extraordinary a character, and some of it so sensational, that had it not been amply corroborated its accuracy might have been doubted. The law to prevent crimping was quite inadequate. For years past it had been openly defied at Newcastle, where a regular traffic existed in inciting seamen to desert. Several witnesses as-

ses-ted that some masters of vessels connived at the practice, partly for the purpose of sharing the -blood money obtained from the sailors, and partly for the purpose of defrauding the seamen of their wages. THE REBATE SCANDAL. PRESS CRITICISMS. SYDNEY, March 20. (Received March 20, at 9.26 a-m.) Regarding rebates, the Commission say that it is freely stated that a combine already exists by whicb the passenger and cargo rates under the. Steamship Owners’ Federation are regulated. Its extent may bp gauged from the fact that out of 180.000 tons engaged in the inter-State traffic less than 10,000 tons are outside the Ring. Evidence was given that any departure from the agreement under the combine involved ® forfeiture of rebates on the whole year’s transactions. The ‘ Herald,’ commenting on the report, says that the taxpayer may perhaps be excused if bo regrets that so much time and money have bee& expended on the collection of well-known facts and arty theories. The * Telegraph ’ says that a peculiarity of the report is that it completely ignores the project of a Commonwealth-owned line of oversea mail steamers, which the Labor party have so insistently advocated. It considers that the conditions proposed by the Commission will almost certainly have the effect of excluding British and foreign shipping from the coastal trade, the avowed object being to build up a local mercantile ■marine. The paper instances, as a lurid exemplar of this policy, the United States, which has seen its mercantile marine almost extinguished by this very process.