IMPERIAL SHIPPING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18322, 12 February 1923, Page 7

IMPERIAL SHIPPING.

CONTROL OF COMPETITION.

CHOICE OF TWO SYSTEMS. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 5.34 p.m.) LONDON. Feb. 10.

The final report of the Imperial Shipping Committee on the deferred rebate system has been released for publication In Britain and Australia and New Zealand.

The committee says: "It is clear that competition .between individual liners or lines in the same trade will be quite incompatible with stability of rates. Wo therefore consider that the conference) system must be accepted as a necessary concomitant of modern commerce. It appears to us that there is a clear mutual 'obligation. The shipper wants a ship on berth without fail, and the shipowner wants goods on berth without fail. Hence we find that the necessary conferences will have some assurance of continuous support from shippers such as will constitute en effective method of preventing irresponsible petition for berth cargo by outside ships.

" After considering the South African agreement, we recommend that individual shippers should have the choice of binding tbfimselves by means of an agreement or remaining under the deferred rebate system., Both systems, therefore, could be in operation simultaneously, but all shippers should be held by one or other method. If the rebate and agreement systems are instituted side by side as optional 1 alternatives, it should be possible for the Commonwealth Government Line and the Conference Lines to serve the trade in amicable concurrence." ■