The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1938. Under the “Red Duster”

Northern Advocate, 30 August 1938, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1938. Under the “Red Duster”

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

AS FAR as her mercantile marine is concerned, Britannia no longer rules the waves, or certainly not with her former assurance. The National Union of British Seamen, it is reported, is alarmed over the condition of the mercantile marine, and the figures quoted give ample grounds for alarm. There are, according to a cable last week, 3u,000 fewer seamen and 2000 fewer ships piymg under the old ‘‘Red Duster" than there were prior to tne outbreak of war in 1914. Britain twenty-four years ago possessed 48 per cent, of the world’s mercantile tonnage. Today her percentage is 28. This is still a large proportion of the total, but the danger is that the decline may not yet have been arrested. Since the War, other nations have vigorously challenged Britain’s maritime leadership, and they have been assisted’by liberal subsidies and other forms of Government assistance. In America, for instance, the JonesWhite Act places United States.ships in a most advantageous position, and it is largely through the huge subsidies paid by the United States Government, plus the restrictions on foreign ships trading between American ports, that the Matson Line has been able in the past few years to establish itself in the trans-Paeifie trade between California, New Zealand and Australia. In many ways the Matson Line’s operations have been most beneficial to New Zealand, but the Monterey and Mariposa are able to take passengers between. British ports (Suva, Auckland and Sydney, for Instance), with no intervening ports of call, whereas any British or foreign ships which took passengers direct between American ports would incur the displeasure of the United States Customs. It was cabled only the other day that a Japanese ship on which the singer Kirsten Flagstad had travelled from Honolulu to San Francisco because to wait for an American ship would have meant missing important engagements, had been fined 200 dollars for a breach of this nature.

It is only in the Pacific that these methods have made Uncle Sam’s competition at sea formidable. In the Atlantic passenger trade, and on the ocean freight routes of the world, American competition is a negligible factor. It is only rarely, .for instance, that a freighter flying the Stars and Stripes is seen in New Zealand waters. Actually, a great deal of American cargo, especially oil, is carried in foreign ships. Many a tanker bringing American motor spirit to New Zealand ports dies the Norwegian dag. While Britain’s mercantile deet has diminished, those of Norway, Holland, Italy and Japan have increased. Norwegian ships now rival British ships as freight carriers in the seven seas. To their tradition of seamanship, which they have fostered and kept alive since the Viking days, tlie Norwegians add simple standards 1 of living, which enable moderate wages to be paid both in the shipyards and on the ships that are built there. Norway’s maritime competition is twofold in effect; her shipyards are busy, while many in Britain are idle, and every ship she builds is a potential competitor with a British ship. Britain, like Norway, has an ancient tradition of seamanship, but modem conditions, for which the National Union of Seamen is perhaps in part responsible, do not encourage it to flourish. It is significant that whereas many other nations maintain seagoing training ships for boys entering the mercantile marine, Britain has not one. The Conway and the Worcester are two fine training ships, but neither goes to sea on long cruises like that on which the Danish trainingship Koebenhavn was mysteriously lost. What is England’s lack is also New Zealand’s. There is no way in which a young New Zealander who wishes to go to sea can serve an apprenticeship or learn his craft by signing on in fo’c’sle or stokehold. New Zealand is an island country, and should encourage interest in seamanship as a profession, but so far little has been done in that direction.