MARITIME “COMPETITION”

Hawera Star, Volume L, 1 December 1930, Page 9

MARITIME “COMPETITION”

VISIT OF LINER MALOLO. A SEAMEN’S. UNION PROTEST. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 1. Mr F. P. Walsh, president of the Seamen’s Union, in an interview states that to the seafaring section of the community there is a serious aspect to, the visit of the luxury liner Malolo, as the vessel entered into the intercolonial trade by carrying over 1000 bags of mails from Sydney, besides bringing passengers from Sydney to their ports - of destination, Wellington and Auckland, thus competing with New Zealand and Australian boats. “The shipping company, like all other American shipping. companies, carries tv heavy Government subsidy and ini spite of the subsidies the wages paid and the conditions of employment imposed on seamen aboard American ships are far below the standard that would have to be complied with were the vessels under the marine laws of New Zealand and Aus-, tralia, 1 “Owing to the lack of trade brought about by the unfair competition of highly subsidised, cheap-labour foreign shipping companies-, there is at the present time a large number of boats laid up- in all the main ports of New ZeaMmd. As the Matson Company -proposes to build two further passenger boats of the Malolo, type, to enter the trans-Pacific trade they will probably make Auckland a port of call on voyages to andl from Sydney, and l if they book passengers from Sydney to Wellington and Auckland and carry mails, their unfair competition will increase the unemployed here and in Australia. “Tn view of American vessels being protected on their own seaboard against competition from outside shipping companies, the companies employing New Zealand and Australian seamen and complying with wages and conditions of employment should be protected against the’ unfair competition of highly subsidised, cheap-labour Yankee ships.i