FUTURE OF SHIPPING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 83, 20 March 1934, Page 9

FUTURE OF SHIPPING

Vicious Circle of Subsidies STUDENTS OFFER OTHER PLAN By Teelgraplx—Press Assn.—Copyright WASHINGTON, March 19. The Foreign Policy Association, a group of students of international affairs, issued a report to-day on “Ship Subsidies and the Future of World Shipping.” It suggested the internationalisation of ocean shipping as an alternative to the vicious circle of the present subsidy system “in which each subsidy calls forth an offsetting one and creates a new obstacle to the restoration of shipping to a sound basis.” The report points out that the Government is faced with two alternatives: (1) To continue subsidising in competition with other countries; (2) to strive in co-operation with other Governments to develop a programme to rescue the international shipping industry from its present plight. The fact is noted that while world trade is seven per cent, below 1913 the total tonnage has increased 38 per cent, which is due to the war, followed by nationalistic shipping policies which make the possibility of a comprehensive international agreement covering world shipping almost impossible. “Perhaps,” says the report, “it will prove more feasible to subject the shipping industry to some form of international planning assuring the chief maritime powers a fair proportion of the world’s shipping while leaving each free to grant such subsidies as it deems necessary for the maintenance of its share.”