SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22710, 24 October 1935, Page 20

SUBSIDISED SHIPPING

♦ LORD BLEDISLOE'S VIEWS APPEAL TO MOTHER COUNTRY. (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, September 21. Lord Bledisloe, in a letter to The Times, expresses the opinion that not a moment too soon has Mr Alexander Shaw, chairman of the P. and 0. Steam Navigation Company, spoken of the peril of British shipping annihilation in the Pacific. " I profoundly trust," he says. " that If the British Government pays heed at long last to his unanswerable arguments for protection against the squeezing out of British shipping, within a sphere which territorially is predominantly British, by American Government subsidisation on a wholly unprecedented scale, it may not prove to be too late. " I confess." continues Lord Bledisloe, " that I have, during my term of office as Governor-General of Nt Zealand, watched with growing alarm the apparently futile although courageous attempt which the owners of our transoceanic liners have made to prevent British shipping from being driven off the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea —alarm based on the conviction that, unless such shipping is available for adaptation to war requirements in the event of the invasion of New Zealand or Australian territory by a foreign Power seeking territorial expansion, a very substantial addition to the naval

squadrons and establishments of our two great Antipodean dominions will be essential to their security and integrity. EMPIRE SOLIDAPITY. " These dominions, while fully sympathising -with the case so clearly stated by Mr Alexander Shaw, have held their hands in the past so as to save Grc:u Britain from diplomatic embarrassments, but they urgently need her outspoken co-operation and assistance now. Without the definite practical sympathy of the Mother Country it would be difficult for them, now that a new 'vested interest' has established itself (albeit under wholly artificial conditions), to take any effective action calculated to save the position. " This is surely a matter which calls for Empire solidarity, especially in face of present-day world conditions, such as would appear to lend encouragement to unwarranted territorial aggression."

The historic farm of St. Hubert, which was the scene of fighting in the battle of Metz in 1870, has been burnt down.