SUBSIDY POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22212, 15 March 1934, Page 9

SUBSIDY POLICY

FOR AMERICAN SHIPPING EXPERTS' RECOMMENDATIONS (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, March 13. (Received March 14, at 9 p.m.) Mr D. C. Roper (Secretary of Commerce) to-day published a lengthy report on the recommendations of Department of Commerce experts for a permanent shipping subsidies policy, ' which he drafted into a 'seven-point programme and submitted to the Congress with President Roosevelt's recommendation that the regulation be approved at the present session. The preamble of the report declares that, "Because American shipbuilding and ship operating costs are the highest in the. world, due to superior standards of living in the United States, Continued Government aid is" necessary in order to offset the competitive handicaps encountered by American ships operating in the fpreign trade.".

Mr Roper emphasised that the present mail contract > system should be abandoned and the new one made flexible enough to meet changing world trade conditions.

Further recommendations include competitive bidding for subsidies, the formation of a committee of experts to administer the subsidy funds, which should be appropriated from the Treasury instead of the Post Office Department as previously, the providing of a complete uniform cost of information by lines to prevent fraud against the Government, and no granting of subsidies to. more than one line competing on the same route unless the volume of business justifies it.