SAN FRANCISCO SERVICE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 10 January 1936, Page 3

SAN FRANCISCO SERVICE

EARLY WITHDRAWAL ANNOUNCED M.ft A. SHAW’S WARNING LONDON, 14th December. The subject of subsidised foreign shipping was touched upon by the Hon. Alexander Slmw at tile annual meeting of the P. and 0. Company. He announced the early withdrawal of the Empire service which for fifty years has linked up Australia and New Zealand with San Francisco. “The position,” he said, “is that not only has it been impossible for a series of years to earn a single penny for depreciation on the ships carrying on these services, but the. out-of-pocket losses are so enormous that no private enterprise can long bear this exhausting burden. It has become quite clear that if the British Government and the Governments of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand wish to retain any service of British Empire ships at all across the Pacific they will have to decide upon, a. policy of assisting those who for so many years have been upholding the British flag at such grave loss. “In the absence of support it has now, as I recently was authorised to announce, been decided with great regret to withdraw altogether the service of Empire ships which for about half a century has linked up Australia and New Zealand with San Francisco. This decision is entirely due to the disastrous effect of highly-subsi-dised foreign competition. When this British service is withdrawn there will only lie left the Canadian-Australasian Line linking up Australasia and the North American' Continent. That line is hulking a great struggle to keep tlffi flag flying, hut at such enormous sacrifice that it depends entirely upon the Governments of the Dominions concerned and upon the Governments here "whether that last remaining British link can be kept intact. “It is becoming apparent,” said Mr Shaw, “that no effective response will be made to British overtures until the British Government lias shown—and shown Hot in words alone but by definite action—its determination that the ships of Britain shall have fair play ; that, if ail argument fails, then subsidy will be'met by subsidy and if need he in the last resort and in proper cases, restriction by restriction; that the vessels of this country shall no longer be the Cinderellas of the sea; and that tile shipping managers of Britain shall at long last be able to speak with their rivals in the gate. “There is yet lime to save tho situation, .time io regain the leeway wo have lost, time to make the Empire secure, and the, name of Britain respected as it should be. But wc must not wait too long. What doctor worth his salt would stand by a patient in whom he had diagnosed the beginnings of a serious and, if neglected, afatal disease and say that no treatment must be applied because it was unnecessary until the position became really desperate? The main trouble from which British shipping is suffering has been diagnosed. The cure is available; and the time to apply that cure is now.”