THE 'FRISCO SERVICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14218, 15 November 1909, Page 6

THE 'FRISCO SERVICE.

PROSPECTS* OF RESUMPTION.

OCEANIC COMPANY'S STEAMERS.

[from our SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

New York, October 12. Judging from present appearances, there is a good prospect of the resumption ot the old service between San Francisco and New Zealand and Australia before very long. President Taft is at present .in California, and he seems to have been impressed with the arguments put forward in favour of the resumption of the service.

Recently I had a conversation with Mr. Samuels, manager of the Oceanic Steamship Company in San Francisco, and he expressed himself hopeful of legislative action being taken soon in support of an American merchant marine, and of the old service to Australia and New Zealand being resumed. "In view of the heavy appropriations made in recent years for a navy," he said, "it seems absurd that no successful action whatever is being taken by the Senate or House to rehabilitate our merchant shipping. The importance of this to the whole coast, and San Francisco in particular, is emphasised by the loss of revenue to this city, due to the withdrawal from active business (owing to the impossibility of competing with foreign tonnage) of the Oceanic Steamship Company. This company's annual expenditure on its three ships now lying up and rusting in the bay amounted to 1,000,000 dollars, spent in the city of San Francisco "alone. Customs records show that since this line was withdrawn the loss in exports' approximates 1,250,000 dollars annually, and as this trade was growing yearly prior to the withdrawal it is not hard to figure that this loss is much greater than the figures given indicate, how much it is impossible to say. The loss to the city from tourist traffic eannot be measured entirely in dollars and cents, but in actual cash it figures about 750,000 dollars per annum; and when the importance of the direct visits of prominent merchants and tourists from all parts of the world passing through our city is taken into consideration, it' is hard, indeed, to estimate just what the loss is.

"The last Canadian-Australian mail liner trading between Sydney and Brisbane and Vancouver direct carried 524 passengers, the previous steamer 432. The great majority of these passengers are prominent men of affairs of Australia and Great Britain and the world in general. Tourists who had visited Australia from the United Kingdom and Continent of Europe in' returning previously passed through this city. As it is, they go directly to Canada, and very few of them find their way south to San Francisco."

It is being brought home to the people of the United States that a great trade is to be done with Australia and New Zealand, and that as matters now stand it is being lost to this country. In a communication sent to Representatives and Senators by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, it is stated that Australia at the present time.is doing an annual business of £10,000,000 with the United States (the business done with New Zealand is not mentioned, though possibly it is included in this total), and that with the exception of a few foreign tramp vessels there is no direct communication between the Pacific Coast and Australia. While this phase of the situation is bad, it Is pointed out that it is not nearly so fcrious as the position the country would be in should the nation become involved in war with anv of the maritime nations of the earth. "We would be utterly paralysed and our navy tremendouslv hampered," it is added, " because of the lack of merchant ships which could be used as auxiliary transport cruisers and colliers. Shall we wait until we thus demonstrate the folly of our present inactivity,; at the came time pouring out millions of dollars annually on a navy which any seaman knows would lose at least 40 per cent, of its total efficiency from lack of the attending service referred to. We urge your very earnest attention and ask that no possible opportunity will be overlooked to urge the imperative necessity of Government aid towards the upbuilding of the merchant marine, which cannot possibly be built up without such assistance, in view of the higher cost of building and the higher standard of living and pay of the American seaman, as compared with that of foreign veseels; ; all of the mail lines heavilv subsidised, moreover, in various ways by their own Governments. . "The few remaining American vessels on the Pacific will find the same fate as the Oceanic Steamship Company unless something is quickly done by the Government towards their assistance, as, the Japanese lines in competition are heavily subsidised by their Government and are using a part of this subsidy to buy freights through rebating ; a double system of competition that American vessels cannot hope to control."- .-" ■

The newspapers devote considerable attention to the subject, and in view of President Taft's utterances there is no doubt that a strong effort will be made when Congress meets to carry the Subsidy Bill through— not for the sake of trade, it should go through on the ground that it will help to build up the merchant marine as an auxiliary to the navy./ . One of the newspapers cites the case of the New England shipowners, the inheritors of generations of thrift and fortitude, who a few years ago built five American steamships and put them on the route from the Pacific seaboard to the Orient. Those ships were acknowledged to be the best and most efficient carriers' that had ever appeared in the trade of the North Pcaific Ocean, but they found themselves confronted with a subsidy of £66,000 to a Japanese and £60,000 to a British line, operating smaller and older vessels out of a Canadian port in direct competition with them. The Americans are keen business men, and they are not going to let other countries take trade away from them if they can help it. > [President Taft's speech on the Ships Subsidy Bill was given in Saturday's issue.]