Untitled

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13876, 13 April 1907, Page 9

THE NAVIGATION CONFERENCE. fiiE Imperial Navigation Conference has, wo should judge, practically concluded its sittings, so that the field may bo left entirely vacant for the more imposing Conference of Prime Ministers that will assemble noxfc week. The delegates to t(io Navigation Conference linvo certainly applied themselves industriously during tho tiino they have had lit' their disposal to tho consideration of tho questions wlueh hnve engaged their attention. Tho divergence between tho British mid colonial standards has rendered it a matter of impossibility to secui'o a general agreement upon some of tho points that have been discussed, but it cannot bo said that the colonial view has not been presented sufficiently fully. Tho cabled reports wo have received suggest, indeed, that tli'o delegates from Australasia, especially -Sir William Lyno and Mr Hughes, representing tho Commonwealth, have been tho most prominent figures at the Conference. Tho New Zealand dc-le-gatev, as the representatives of tho country which possesses what is regarded as tho most " advanced " shipping, legislation, had less occasion to obtrude their views upon the notice of tho Conference.' Beside*, this colony has not had reason to feel, at anyrato to the samo extent as Australia has hud, tho necessity for action upon some of tho lines advocated by . Sir William Lyno and Mr Hughes. Upon most points, however, tho colonial delegates would seem to liavo co-operated in pressing the opinions which uro held by the rilling classes in tliese colonies upon the attention of the Conference. We shall not be surprised to learn, when tho fuller reports of the sittings come to hand, that it will have been somewhat of a shock to the more conservative minds of the official delegates and of tho representatives of the shipowners at Homo to hear the demands of the colonies supported with the bluntness and insistence that have apparently marked tho oratory of Sir "William Lyne and Mr Hughes. As we may be sure, they will also, to .even a more striking degree, havo marked .that of Mr lieleher. It is satisfactory to lioto that upon some of the points in regard to which tho Home delegates would, in the event of a division, have been forced to record their votes in opposition to tho proposals of the visitors, the colonial delegates contented themselves with ventilating their views. No good object would have been served, for example, if tho Conference had been compelled to divide on the question of the employment- of coloured labour. It would bo vain to attempt a denial of the force of tho declaration, made on behalf of tho India Office, that it is impossible for the Imperial Govern-

Mont to consider legislation which would exclude British subjects like the Lascars from tho British maritime service. And Imperial considerations necessarily enter into the discussion of any proposal to restrict, by whatever means, the employment of alien labour upon vessels registered [it British ports or trading in British waters. It is certainly not a veiy flattering circumstance that there should bo over 40,000 foreign seamen employed in the mercantile marine service of Great Britain—men who, though they may know enough of tho ICnglis'h language to understand the words of command, which is practically all that tho Board of Trade requires of them, would inevitably be a source of weakness and a cause of anxiety on their ship in the event of the occurrence of international disturbance. The question of how British seamen are to bo substituted for the foreigners who now are employed so largely in British ships is probably, in considerable measure, a question of the conditions of employment. In other words, ft .is likely that British seamen will bo procurable for British vessels in sufficient numbers to enable tho proportion of foreign labour to be reduced to a. minimum when tho conditions of employment in respect of wages, accommodation, and victualling are ,mado more attractive. But here tho element of the competition of foreign ship-owners, whose vessels are manned 011 a cheap scale, crops up. The problem w, it must be acknowledged, so exceedingly complex that it is impossible to hold that uniform conditions can bo rigidly insisted upon in all circumstances. Sir William Lyno has said that the Conference has accomplished more than was expected, and that ho personally had practically gained all that lie hoped to achieve. Even whero the colonial delegates have failed to convince the Conference of the practicability and wk'dom of what, they havo proposed, .we canno.t but believe that the discussions that have taken place, in which tho colonial view of the requirements of navigation laws has been expressed so unreservedly, will havo a valuable effect in Great Britain.