SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22101, 3 November 1933, Page 6

SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

AMERICAN COMPETITION SOME AUSTRALIAN RESTRICTIONS The opinion that the present agitation among the shipping companies for some action by the Governments of Australia and New Zealand to prevent unfair competition by American vessels was deserving of consideration was expressed by a •Dunedin business man, who is m close touch with the New Zealand shipping industry. At the same time lie pointed out that the time had come when the Governments of the Dominion and the Commonwealth might well revise their own navigation laws to permit or the free carriage of passengers and cargo between any ports in either of the two Countries by both .Australian and New Zealand-owned ships. While it was unfair. he stated, that the mercantile trade of these countries should be subjected to competition from a country which protected itself by strict navigation law's from similar competition, it_was also something of an anomaly that "New Zealand ships should not be allowed to trade between two Australian ports,, and he felt that the Commonwealth might well put her own house in order in this respect betore criticising too harshly the activities ot American rivals. „ , “ One cannot object, he said, to the action of the Government of the United States in providing heavy subsidies to companies engaged m overseas trade or to the provisions which enable shipping companies in America to borrow money for the building of new vessels at rates as low as from three-eighths to °ne and aquarter per cent. It is quite a laudable thing that America should attempt to build up a strong mercantile marine, lor the last war showed that the countrj lacked adequate shipping for. even the carriage of its troops to Europe, wnth the result that dependence had to .be placed to a large extent on the shipping of other countries. One can >. take exception to the fact that British ships are prevented by the Amen can navigation laws from carrying either nassengers or cargo between American ports the subsidised shipping companies of that country are carrying Passengers between British ports, such as Auckland Sydney, and Melbourne. New- Zea-and-owned vessels, on the contrary, may not engage in the *rade between Honolulu and San Francisco. . . “When one discusses this position the thought arises that British countries such as Australia and New. Zealand are also not without anomalies in their navigation laws. In this respect the case of the Australian-owned ship Wanganella mig t hp taken as an instance. This vessel trades between Wellington, Sydney, and Melbourne, and Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne and vice versa. When she ar rives at, Sydney, being an Australianowned ship, she is allowed to # carry passengers and cargo from that port to Melbourne and from Melbourne to Sydney. On the other hand the New Zealand controlled Monowai. which is engaged » trade between the same ports, - is permitted to carry only through passengers from New Zealand to Melbourne via Sydney, and is not allowed to pick up passengers at Sydney %for Melbourne or at Melbourne for Sydney. "As another instance, one might motion the Melbourne-Bluff To some extent this had to be discontinued by the self-same navigation laws, which prevented the Union Company vessels from calling at Hobart to land either passengers or cargo from Melbourne. One cannot help thinking, therefore, ■ when such keen Australian criticism is being levelled at the unfairness of the American competition, that it is time that both Australia and New Zealand gave some consideration to their own navigation laws in the direction of allowing complete freedom ot trade for the carrying of both passengers and cargo between the ports of either country by both Commonwealth and Ho-minion-owned ships.”