IMPERIAL SHIPPING POLICY

Evening Star, Issue 21639, 7 February 1934, Page 12

IMPERIAL SHIPPING POLICY

P. AND 0. CHAIRMAN'S VIEW (Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, February 6. Mr Alexander Shaw, chairman of the P. and 0. Line, arrived by the Mdnowai to-day on a holiday visit to New Zealand. Li an interview he urged the need for a definite British shipping policy This, he said, would he the only way of preventing the process of decay which had set in so far as the British mercantile fleet was concerned.

Mr Shaw said that the shipping which carried the commerce was as necessary as the commerce itself, and in that sphere they were certainly without defence against economic aggression. “ We have not even the power to bargain,” he said. “We have nothing to bargain with, and as a consequence we have seen the decline of the British mercantile marine from 4,‘5 per cent, of the world’s tonnage before the war to 29 per cent, to-day. That process is still continuing. Before Britain took the power to negotiate by tariffs there was a large body of people with cold feet who held it to be unwise for us to defend ourselves for fear that we might offend some foreign country. 1 find in certain quarters at Home the same timidity complex to-day. “ Certain countries have said quite definitely that the foundation of a strong navy is a strong mercantile marine, and although the economic position does not make a huge mercantile marine necessary, they have built up that navy. What we want is an Imperial shipping policy. If we had had that the present disastrous position could never have arisen. If we go on without an Imperial shipping policy there is nothing whatever to prevent the process of decay continuing until it is too late to'repair it.”