THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN GROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1902. ANGLO-AMERICAN SHIPPING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12087, 4 October 1902, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN GROSS. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1902. ANGLO-AMERICAN SHIPPING.

The friendly arrangement which has been made between British and American interests in the Atlantic shipping trade is a very satisfactory outcome of recent events. Such an arrangement may not suit either the speculators of Wall-street or the opposing extremists who would deny the legitimate aspirations of American industry. But it will be gratifying to that great majority in both the English-speaking peoples who hold that their true interests are identical and that all AngloAmerican questions can be settled upon fair and mutually advantageous lines. Mr. Gerald Balfour, President of the British Board of Trade, in detailing at Sheffield the steps being taken by the imperial Government to secure that British ships, British trade, and British sailors should not be injuriously affected by the "combine," of which we have heard so much, asserted, as part of that protective policy, the principle that the Americans were entitled to " a considerable share of the Atlantic trade." . Mr. Choate, the American Ambassador, followed him in a reciprocally friendly strain, and expressed the hope that the ties which bind the two Anglo-Saxon communities would continue unbroken for a thousand years. Such a friendship and such a co-operation for common commercial purposes is natural. It can only be disturbed by ill-con-sidered actions, which no patriotic citizen of either community should tolerate or approve. Both America and Britainnot excepting Greater Britain—are injured by the inflammatory utterances and short-sighted proposals of politicians who do not consider the deep importance of our drawing together against the hardly veiled enmity of other Powers to both of them. By foolish Americans, as by foolish British, the Atlantic "combine" movement has been spoken of as an attack upon British mercantile supremacy. Such a contention ignores the conditions which have led up to the movement. During the past twenty years the inevitable play of Anglo-Saxon organisation in industry has been bringing about an understanding between all the great American railway systems. That organisation has for some considerable time been completed. The land-carrying trade to and from the Atlantic seaboard of the United States has been practically unified, and the Atlantic trade itself has gradually been brought into connection with the American railway organisation in a more or less unsystematic manner. The so-called " Morgan combine" is nothing more nor less than the introduction, of systematic American methods into the whole of the tremendous trade done between the American States and the coast of the United Kingdom. Its aim has not been to " capture" the British flag, but to bring railways and shipping into such co-operation that there shall be no loss of time, loss of labour, or loss of capital. The associated American railways sought to be able " to direct the movements of freight steamers,, to fix their ports, and allot their dates of sailing," in order that some lines and ports might not be congested and choked while others were lying comparatively empty, to the detriment of the entire industrial community as well as to the economic loss of the lines and ships involved. The co-opera-tive method adopted was that known as the " combine," a system by which, while each company involved retained its corporate existence, their energies were to be controlled by a central directorate. There is nothing ;n this which can be considered of the nature of attack," and the agreement arrived at between the " combine" and the Imperial Government, an agreement suggested some months ago by Mr. Morgan himself, shows that there is every desire to maintain loyal and harmonious relations with Britain as well as with the United States. The arrangements made with the Cunard Company are important, and particularly indicative as showing the trend of maritime policy, even in such conservative countries as the United Kingdom. But the arrangements made with the Morgan combine arc infinitely more important, for they recognise a community of interests between Britain and America, and initiate a policy of maritime amity and co-operation. No power on earth can keep the Americans from the seas, and' the kindred power should bo the last to attempt such a foredoomed folly. Eighty millions of English-speaking people, whose external trade is second only to our own, whose borders are laved by distant oceans, and whose goods are found in every market, would not be true to stock if they did not instinctively set their faces towards the sea. We can either fight them for oceanic supre-

macy—a fight in which our hearts would not sustain us, and the odds must be against us—or we can share ii. with them, and hold against all alien comers the ocean-trade and the ocean-walls. The Imperial Government has chosen the better part, has not feared to cordially accept the inevitable, and to officially recognise an industrial alliance which, fairly conditioned, must work out for our national prosperity. The New Zealand Herald has long advocated the cardinal principles or this policy. The Americans are not " foreigners" to the British nor are we " foreigners" to them. Their warships do not threaten us; on the contrary, their growing navy is an added bulwark to our safety. Their flag is not an emblem of jealousy and hatred, unless we forget that it was first run up by English hands in defence of English liberties. And unless, by that same strange pervci'seness of our hearts, as drove the Thirteen Colonies from their loyalty, we estrange again the American people, we shall easily be able to arrange the petty differences that arise between us. That ap Anglo-American marine must ultimately be protected by an Anglo American navy is one or the least of the advantages which must follow from the happy settlement of such great shipping questions.