SHIPPING SUBSIDIES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 79, 15 March 1934, Page 9

SHIPPING SUBSIDIES

New United States Policy I . OUT LINE OF PROPOSED PLAN By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright. WASHINGTON, March 14. The Secretary of Commerce, Mr Roper to-day published a lengthy report on the recommendations of Department of Commerce experts for a permanent shipping subsidies policy, which he drafted into a seven-point programme and submitted to Congress with President Roosevelt’s recommendation that the regulation be approved at the present session. The preamble of the report declares . ‘Because American shipbuilding and ship operating costs are the highest in .' the world, due to the superior stanI dards of living in the United States, ' continued Government aid is necessary j in order to offset competitive handicaps encountered by American ships operating in foreign trade ” After emphasising that the present mail contract system should bo aband oned and a new one made that is flex ible enough to meet changing world ‘ trade conditions, Mr Roper specified 1 four divisions in which subsidies should g I be classified—namely, to meet construe ‘ tion. differential costs of operating differential trade penetration subsidy, and subsidies to meet other conditions as a counteractive to foreign subsid les. • Further recommendations include competitive bidding for subsidies; the formation of a committee of experts to administer subsidy funds, which should be appropriated from the Treasury instead of the Post Office Department as previously; the providing of a com plete, uniform cost of information by lines to prevent fraud against the Government, and no granting of subsidies to more than one line competing on the same route unless the volume of business justifies it.