STATE-AIDED SHIPPING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21377, 29 December 1932, Page 7

STATE-AIDED SHIPPING

AMERICAN CHALLENGE BRITISH OWNER'S VIEWS LONDON, Dec. «0 Sir Alan Anderson, presiding at the annual meeting of the Orient Line, and " referring to the United States Government's subsidising, of t.he Matson Line, recalled that an American journalist had described this use of 25,000,000 dollars as "a gesture of challenge to British Em- *■ pire trade." . A*> Sir. Alan's own description of the subsidy was "a curious'piece of commercial enterprise." ' A shipowner, lje. saifl, had emphasised that the Matson Line> was challenging--both the P. and O. Company and the Orient Line with speed, comfort and perfect efficiency.

Sir Alan Anderson added:."The Orient Line does not claim 'perfect efficiency,' and it cannot play 'beggar-my-neigEbqur' with the richest nation on earth. Nevertheless, we shall try to maintain a service on which Britons can travel with .comfort and despatch, at our own cost."

Sir Alan Anderson said that the United - States Shipping Board had reported that American taxpayers paid in operating losses and laying-up expenses on its merchant ships £5,000,000 a year for the five years ended June, 1928, the total log* for the period 1920-32, including operating loss, but excluding interest, being £600,000,000. It was difficult to exaggerate the injury " which America inflicted on world. trade and herself by devoting such a mass of ' wealth to rejecting payment by debtors in the form of shipping services.