THINGS IN GENERAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16035, 29 September 1915, Page 10

THINGS IN GENERAL

PACIFIC -SHIPPING DEAL. . Br the sale of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's liners Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, Siberia, 'and China, to the Atlantic Transport Company, five of the finest liners afloat will be transferred from the Pacific -to the . Atlantic, the aggregate gross tonnage being 100.200 tons. This means a big loss to San Francisco, at which port over a million pounds sterling was spent in connection with the ships. The history of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company is interwoven with the romance of the mercantile marine of the Pacific Ocean. It was founded in the late 'fifties, soon after the Panama Railway was completed, and speedily established profitable communication with China and Japan and Panama. A bar to its rapid advancement was, however, the sluggishness of the railway authorities, who appeared to havo been content to jog along on a small margin of profit instead of launching out and developing the line so that it might rarry more goods. With the completion of the overland railway between San Francisco and the Eastern States of Americi, the Pacific Company removed its headquarters to San Francisco, and at once began to extend its services, which at one time included lines to New Zealand and Australia, as well as to China, Japan, and America. LAUNCHING AUSTRALIAN t. WARSHIPS. The question of whether or not intoxieating liquors should be used at the launching of Australian warships has been asked in the Federal House and the Minister for Defenc) has replied quite unequivocally that the practice followed at the launching of the Torrens recently will be followed at the launching of the Brisbane, that .is,. drinks of various kinds will be available and those present may please themselves as to what they drink. The smashing of a bottle of wine over a warship's bow. as she receives her name and glides gracefully into the tide, is one which no one i would surely wish to see altered; the custom is as old as seaman- i ship arid the use of ships. The important j side of the argument really lies in the , fact thai Australia's much-delayed homebuilt fleet is now being got afloat. The 'T)erwent was launched last March, the Torrens a fortnight ago, and tho Bris-' baneV* sister ship of the famous Sydney,.is expected to be launched before the end of the year. The Torrens and Derw'entj and the Swan, now being built, are 'destroyers of 900 tons burden; the Brisbane is a cruiser of 6000 tons. She is being built at Cockatoo Island on a strefeh of dockyard about lCft stove the beach. But owing to the sheer drop into deep' water which is found at most places :-.\ Sydney Harbour, it was found necessary to build a coffer-dam of considerable size in-order.to lay down launching ways' for the cruiser without having to employ a slow and costly process by which divers; would do the work. v This coffer-dam wag to cost £.50,000. Apparently it has been successfully carried out, and the Bris-

bane, the first cruiser, to be built in Australasia, should be afloat very soon, arid in .commission within six 'months., That is, after fdl, the important fact, and the occasion might justify Mr. Pearce's liberal hospitality to the lucky spectators of the Brisbane's launching. 1 AUSTRALIA'S RAILWAYS. "'• Probably no country in tho world lias such a big railway-Duilding programme ahead of her" as.Australia. Her vast distances, cry out for linos to link town to town, district to district, country centres to available ports. The first of these lines to be opened for traffic will be that from Kalgoo'rlie,',.' in \ West , Australia, to Port Augusta, near Adelaide. The end of the year 1916 is mentioned as the time for this historic linking of the east with the west. The multiplicity of railway gauges, however, is a problem which Australians become almost too perplexed over to be able to think clearly about it. \ln Queensland the same gauge as in New Zealand, 3ft 6in, is used. In New South Wales., the world's ;standard gauge, 4ft Biin, is found; in Victoria it is oft Sin, and from the » Victorian border , to Adelaide, in South Australia, the same gauge is used. The remainder of South Australia's lines are on »he 3ft 6in. gauge, while the new trans-continental to Kal-gc-oriie is being built on the 4ft Bjin gauge. So, at the Adelaide railway station, ho less than three different gauges ■will converge. The confusion and transhipment will be prodigious. In time, the whole of the Australian railways are to be altered to the 4ft Bsin gauge, the cost being estimated at about £35,000,000. The - Northern Territory Railway, from Port Darwin in the north, is on the 3ft 6in 'gauge, and so are all the West Australian railways, except the new one to Adelaide. The whola trouble is traceable to inter-State jealousy in the days before federation, when each State wished to "have the products of its lands shipped at its porta and not from the ports of neighbouring States, howeyer close at hand -they might be. : Even to-day this spirit prevails, hut men. have become more reasonable. New- South Wales has agreed to allow Victoria to push a branch of her

sft 3in gauge across the Murray to tap a remote settlement and so give it access to a handy port; and Queensland has agreed to build a 4ft B£jn line from Bris-

bane to meet at Tweed River the North Coast Railwav pf New South Wales. To the stranger the tangle.of gauges appears inextricable, yet, no doubt, it will be unravelled in time.

SHIPPING EARNINGS AND EXPENSES The increase, announced a few weeks ago, in the passenger fares between London and certain of the Australian ports— the first which has taken place since the war began— a reminder that the liner 'ompaaies have not been earning the exceptional profits which have fallen to some of the cargo steamship ownerships. A few of those cargo steamship owners, who have so far been fortunate, may in future years look back to 1915 as a year of great prosperity; the passenger liner companies will certainly regard it as a period of grave anxiety. The cargo steamship owner has been well able to cover the large increase in working costs by the still higher rise in freights; the liner companies have not the same margin to draw upon, because the passenger traffic has fallen away and their cargo freights are governed by tariffs which are only changed cautiously and after joint confederation with the merchants. Increased working costs are reafly a very considerable factor in profit and loss. One great passenger company has just found that the total cost of ships' stores has advanced bv 30 per cent, within the year, while wages has in many cases doubled. The rise in coal has been enormous. DelaTfl in port still continue, which involves a loss of earning power which is little an predated by the public. OUTLOOK FOR LINER COMPANIES. On the other hand, the managements of the liner companies tire more favourably disposed towards ifte Government terms >of hire than the cargo steamship lines. To expect them all to sav that they are entirely satisfied would, perhans be asking too much of human Sfffi the wale of rates, for the fast and lan» passenger liners never aroused any seSs SSttfcijflfe ' tho **&m& know .; i cargo .vessels, hi pSuUvLnf V-° . theft normal «adef Still y o»n P °i d ,n regard-the employmentf/ SSuS^Z f, • "tRVWt than would normally

result, while in the event of loss the monetary payment would probably not represent the real loss to the companies of ships built for particular trades. This, however, is a risk which is gladly faced in the country's interest, and Government requisitioning has undoubtedly solved the problem of the remunerative employment of their large and powerful vessels. The dislocation caused at first has long passed, and all believe that the worst, even for those lines which were most heavily hit, is now over. The earnings generally are now considered to bo on a satisfactory basis, and the prospects have improved. AUSTRALIA'S PROBLEM. Freis comment has been made by English newspaper" on the (act that of all the Dominions of tho Empire, Australia is the only one in which bitter party politics are still being carried on. The London Times recently expressed the opinion that there was something grim in the spectacle of a great country engaged in domestic quarrels, at a time of national peril like tho present, and asked why the politicians could not (share the high and noble vision of the men who were going out. unafraid, to die for the Empire on the heights of Gallipoli. The truth is that the whole of Australia's political troubles are due to the forcing upon an unwilling minority a proposal to take a referendum with the view of increasing the powers of the Federal Parliament, and decreasing the powers of the States. The suggested amendment of the Constitution has been twice put to the popular vote, and twice rejectee. In the circumstances the Government would have shown more tact had it left over the third appeal until after the war. THE GESTOIAt.