FOREIGN SHIPPING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21279, 5 September 1932, Page 13

FOREIGN SHIPPING

Sir,—What benefit can accrue throughout the Empire to our primary producers and, in turn, to every one of us, preferences and tariffs notwithstanding, when 'we see at every turn the menace of foreign shipping interests, gradually laying a stranglehold on our once-proud mercantile marine? As British citizens we are proud of our naval strength: necessarily wo are told to guard our great trade communications. Will wo need our Navy in,'say, 10 years' time, to do this duty of guarding our mercantile marino; I think not, if one stops to review tho peaceful penetration by foreign nations of our Imperial trade routes. We have had in tho past few months many examples of the methods under which subsidised foreign shipping lines operate, and it grieves me, as a British subject, to see what is taking place. If British subjects of high and low estate refrained from travelling in foreign ships it would go a long way toward defeating this menace. In view of the unity desired as the outcome of the Ottawa Conference, let British people patronise British ships, both as regards freights and passenger transport, or else beioro very long I sco all Imperial preferences, etc., greatly offset by increased charges of foreign shipowners odco tho British mercantile marine is floundering in the stranglehold of the invader. Tt behoves us all in contemplating sea travel or freighting cargo to remember, what the famous signal at Trafalgar means to day, as it did on that memorable occasion, to realise that tho author of that signal made possible that great gathering of our statesmen at Ottawa over a century later. Are the citizens cf our Empire of to-day going to stand by and see the work of that greatest of British subjects destroyed ? Te Puke. H. A. Washed.