Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY,, MAY 15, 1936. JAPAN’S SUBSIDISED SHIPPING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 140, 15 May 1936, Page 8

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY,, MAY 15, 1936. JAPAN’S SUBSIDISED SHIPPING.

It is only recently that _ Japan has secured a place in international shipping. At the time when the Spanish and Dutch were supreme on the seas, Japan also was a great maritime nation. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries her vessels sailed not only to China, Siam, Philippines, India, and Australia, but also as far as Mexico and round the Cape of Good Hope to Europe: at one time at least two hundred vessels were trading with twenty different countries. But in 1634 Japan closed her ports, which remained closed for over two hundred years to all foreign intercourse, and during this period the building of ocean-going vessels was prohibited. In 1894 Japan owned 95,QU0 tons of mercantile shipping. In that year began the Smo-Japan ese War, from which she emerged with 265,000 tons, which amount was nearly doubled by the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. By the end of the war her tonnage had reached 827,000. Between 1904 and the beginning of the Great War Japan increased her tonnage by 70 per cent., and during the next decade by u further 70 per cent., so that in 1924 she owned 2,500,000 tons and ranked as the third largest mercantile shipping nation of the world. In 1914 the world’s tonnage of vessels (of over 100 tons) was 49,000,000, of which the British Empire owned 21,000,000, or nearly 43 per cent., and Japan 1,700,000, which was 3.48 per cent. By June, 1933, world tonnage had increased to 68,000,000; that of Great Britain had increased only by 4 per cent, while Japan’s tonnage had risen to over 4,000,000, equal to 6 per cent, of the world’s tonnage. Japan has always subsidised her shipping. Between 1910 (when the Japanese Shipping Subsidy Act* was passed) and 1920 the amount of subsidies paid by the Japanese Government was 177,000,000 yen, of which the Nippon Yusen Kaisha received half. In 1932 the Ship Improvement Act was passed. This Act provided for the scrapping of 400,000 tons, for which the subsidies were 15 yen per ton scrapped, 20 yen per ton replaced, and 55 yen per ton foi building' of vessels suitable tor conversion into auxiliary cruisers. For most of the period the subsidies have amounted to more than half of the net income of the companies, and in certain post-war years have prevented heavy losses.

On the whole the - Japanese shipping industry has not been profitable. Writing m 1925, the late Mr Inonye, the Japanese

Finance Minister, said that he did not believe that Japan could ever create a sufficiently large export trade to balance her international payments, and that for this reason she would be obliged to make a supreme effort to develop her shipping industry. It was stated some time ago that Japan would this month start a direct service with New Zealand but we can hardly see the necessity for this as there is already a monthly service via Australia. Japan buys more from us than we buy from lier.