THE "ALL-RED" ROUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13523, 22 August 1907, Page 6

THE "ALL-RED" ROUTE.

ADVERSE CRITICISM

[from OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

London, July 12. A coot) deal is being written in this country just now about the proposed " All-Red" mail route between England and New Zealand via Canada, proposed at the Imperial Conference by Sir Joseph Ward and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and then tacitly approved by the present British Government.

While the project rinds warm favour in Imperialist circles, it is as a rule either '"damned with faint praise' - or else gently deprecated as infringing "the principles of free, trade."

One of the ablest Ministerial journals says:—"Sir Wilfrid Laurier's advocacy of the plan was persuasive, and there arc other influences less eloquent, but not less potent, which are not likely to let the question drop. Having had to say ' No' to the colonies' request that we should reverse our fiscal system and put a tariff on food and raw materials, the Government, is naturally anxious to be as conciliatory as it can, where the ark of free trade, itself is not in danger, and might be tempted to give as a matter of'policy what would certainly be refused as a matter of business. We hope i* will do nothing of the soit. Sir Wilfrid Laurier's proposal that traffic which now reaches Australasia by crossing the United States to San Francisco should be diverted so as to reach it by crossing Canada to Vancouver instead, is not business. If it were there would be no need for a subsidy. There is, as Sir Wilfrid said at the time, an Atlantic and a Pacific side to the question. On the Atlantic, Canadian ports, though somewhat nearer Great Britain, cannot, on account of their proximity to ice-bound seas, compete for the purposes of a fast service with New York. On the Pacific, New Zealand will be content with nothing short of a service, which would bring ..he colony within three weeks "of Londoninstead of six by the —requiring a speed of at least 22 or 23 knots, and costing anything from £500,000 to £400,000 a year. " If the demand for such a service existed, commerce might be trusted to supply it. If it docs not exist, why should the taxpayer be burdened with the maintenance of a service which cannot be cither as short, as safe, or as popular as those with which it seeks to compete? It all really comes to this, that sentimentally the money which is now spent in American freights by transoceanic travellers (goods go, and will continue to go, by s;ome longer route which docs not involve breaking hulk), should be spent in Canadian freights by.a certain proportion of those travellersand the deficit made up by those who find the subsidy."