BRITISH SHIPPING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20988, 29 March 1930, Page 19

BRITISH SHIPPING.

SURVEY OF TRADE POSITION. HIGH TAXATION AND TARIFFS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 20. In its annual report the Liverpool Steamship Owners’ Association surveys the trade position of the country, and makes some pertinent remarks on the subject of inter-Empire trade. In an analysis of the overseas trade of the United Kingdom, it is pointed out that imports in 1929 showed an increase in volume of 4,000,000 tons on those of 1928. A satisfactory feature, the report states, is that the bulk of that increase is accounted for by a rise of 3,000,000 tons in imports of raw materials, but imports of manufactures have increased by 500,000 tons, and in 1929 were 74 per cent, greater than in 1913. In 1913 the percentage of British tonnage engaged in bringing in the foreign trade of the country was 65.8 per cent.; in 1929 it was 65.0. Exports {including re-exports), other than coal, in 1929 increased in volume over 1928 by 1,300,000 tons. Of this increase, the report shows, 900,000 tons is accounted for by manufactures. The increase in re-exports is entirely in manufactures. Exports of coal have increased by over 10,000,000 tons, but still fall far short of those of 1913.

In regard to the shipping tonnage employed m carrying out the foreign trade of the country, in 1913 the British percentage was 59 per cent.; in 1929 66 per cent.

The trade figures for 1929 as a whole, the report states, “ indicate that some progress has been made during the year towards the re-establishment of the nation’s overseas trade on n sounder basis. In volume the total of our exports, excluding coal, exceeded that of 1913. but we have continued to import on a scale much greater than that of 1913, and the increase in the volume and value of our imports is not being met, as it was prior to 1914, by a corresponding increase in the volume and value of our exports. Exports of coal fall short of those of 1913 by over 12,000.009 tons. In 1929 the value of our exports as a whole represented 69 per cent, of that of our imports, compared with a comparative figure of 80 ner cent, for 1913. PRODUCTION COSTS.

Generally, production cost remains at a level which make it difficult for ns to sell in the open markets of the world, and the rates of pay in the sheltered trades remain at an uneconomic level and react to the detriment of our competitive power and reduce the volume of sales in the export trades. The wage-earners in those last-named trades, in their own low wages and lack of employment, continue to carry the burden of the comparatively high wages paid in those industries w-hich are not exposed to foreign competition. At home, industry and commerce are hampered by high taxation, and abroad, countries which are able and anxious to sell to us make trade impossible by persistmg in the maintenance of tariffs and other trade barriers and prohibitions. In result the shipping industry continues in a marked degree, to suffer from under-employment.”

DOMINIONS’ TRADE BARRIERS. Reference is made to the possibility of increasing trade within the Empire and to the meeting of the Imperial Conference this year.

A great deal should be possible,” the report affirms, “provided we are all as willing buyers as we are willing sellers interempire trade can never be substantially increased merely by increased imports by this country from the dominions; such imports must in the main be offset and paid for by a corresponding increase in purchases by the dominions of our exports. As matters stand th» trade harriers which some of the dominions erect against us deprive us of the chance of increasing our purchases from them. As was pointed out by the Committee on Industry and Trade, it is a remarkable fact that since the war the main increases of tariff rates on British exports have been within the Empire, where the average ad valorem incidence has arisen by nearly two-thirds, while in foreign countries the average ad valorem incidence has decreased by one-fifth.”