SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21717, 5 February 1934, Page 12

SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

Sir, —In answer to correspondents, 1 would like to ask them if they think there should be no shipping competition at.all. Since we have had the Matson Line running here, there has been better service. We should quit being jealous and let the shipping companies fight thoir own battles. There is plenty of unfair business carried on hero without going outsid® New Zealand to look for it. Matsoxia. Sir, —To fight subsidised foreign shipping on the lavish American scale would cost the Empire not less than £30,000,000 a year. It is not the annual subsidy alone British shipping has to fight, but the ships themselves are constructed out of funds provided by the Government at a nominal fate of interest, 2 per cent, such interest not always being paid, even out of the subsidy, as was brought out in the recent Senate inquiry. Ships, owned by the Government, have been sold by the United States Shipping Board to operators at 37s per ton. (Imagine thd Aorangi being sold for £35,000.) And the sale price returned to the operators iin two years by way of the subsidy. To meet the local competition of tho subsidised Matson Line, can it reasonably be suggested that the Union Company be granted a loan, by the Governments interested, of, say, £1,000.000, at.2 per cent, for the construction of two vessels equal to thos;d of the Matson Line, and these two ves- * sels be subsidised to the extent of £360,000 per annum in order to enable the Union Company to compete ou equal terms. That is fantastic, but if not, what inducements have the Union Company under present conditions to spend shareholders' money on constructs ing new ships, knowing there. is not even a fighting chance of paying,running expenses. Bj] all means let British shipping meet fair competition, but this , is not competition; it is war, directed primarily against British shipping, the means by which we live. Obviously, something more drastic than subsidies is needed to meet this menace. The remedies for this are many. Prohibit foreign subsidised ships .carrying passengers and freight between one British port and another. Empire goods carried in. subsidised foreign ships shall not be granted Empire preference. Foreign goods carried in foreign subsidised ships to be charged a higher customs entry. There need be no restrictions to tho Matson Line bringing us tourists from California or Honolulu, but restrictions ' from Suva and Sydney, as our local ships can well take care of such traffic. Douglas I). Black.