BRITISH SHIPS LINKS OF EMPIRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22779, 15 January 1936, Page 8

BRITISH SHIPS

LINKS OF EMPIRE

NEED FOR CO-OPERATION FLEET IN MEDITERRANEAN. i From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, December 14. At a meeting of the Council of the British Empire League, held in the House of Lords under the chairmanship of the Duke of Sutherland, special reference was made to the competition of the heavily subsidised American shipping services between San Francisco, Honolulu, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia, and to the serious danger of those ships driving British ships off the trans-Pacific route a few months hence. Sir Robert Horne, M.P., moved—“ That in the interests of British shipping, especially that serving Empire ports, and in view of the present degree of unemplqyment in our shipping and shipbuilding industries, the council of the Britsh Empire League draws the attention of his Majesty’s Government to the urgent need for co-operation with the self-governing dominions in order to adopt an Empire shipping policy that will preserve the existence of British Empire steamship services in future in face of State-aided competition.’’ British ships, said Sir Robert, wefe links tiiat bound the Empire together, and without which its existence would be imperilled. In addition to the support given to the British shipbuilding industry, British shipping services represented invisible exports worth to-day about £64,000,000 a year. Tbe whole structure of the British shipping industry was vitally affected by the steady growth of foreign State subsidies, which had assumed new proportions of late years. The position of British shipping was not only injuriously affected, but it was seriously imperilled on some of the seas of the world. Whereas British shipping tonnage had decreased by something like 500,000 gross tons since 1914, the shipping tonnage of the rest of the world had increased by 66 per cent. He supposed that last year the revenue from British shipping did not represent more than 1 per cent, on the capital; and if they regarded 5 per cent, as the more or less normal interest the reduction in income was shown to be SO per cent., apart from the question of depreciation. The position was becoming worse. In the traffic between Australia and New Zealand, between Australasia and Fiji, Honolulu and San Francisco British ships were in danger of being run off the sea within a few months because they were faced with the highly subsidised American line. The £2,000,000 subsidy had saved some shipping firms from bankruptcy, and the Prime Minister’s statement at Liverpool was welcomed. The resolution was seconded by Mr .ij. S Amery, M.P., who described British shipping as the greatest invisible export the country had. It was an essential framework of Empire communications and an indispensable part of naval defence. Tbe mercantile marine for Britain was not merely an important consideration, biit also a matter of life and death. I roin bein' l, nearly half the world s total tonnage 0 at the beginning of tbe it was now down to 27 per cent. The Empire had got to work out a constructive policy based upon the control which its world-wide territories gave us. It might be necessary to have an Empire Navigation Act in which by agreement Empire trade and coastal trade should give a definite preference to goods carried in British ships between Empire ports. Britain should also use her bargaining power to secure from other countries a greater use of British shipping 1 ‘ Lord Blcdisloo remarked that subsidised American competition bad given him great concern during his stay in New Zealand, because of the threat it offered to British shipping. ONE-SIDED CONDITION.

Sir Thomas Wilford stated that the Dominion Government was helpless in remedying what was at present heading for a calamity for British' shipping in the Pacific. While under the Navigation Act of 1870 America barred British ships from trading between any two American ports, American shipping was able to trade at will between British ports, the initiative in taking legislative action to stop that one-sided condition rested solely with the British Government, which would find New Zealand ready to co-operate once it did act. . A further resolution, moved by l-ora Lloyd, seconded by Admiral of the I'leet Sir Roger Keyes, M.P., and carried, welcomed the assurance given by the British Government of its intention forthwith to furnish the Royal Navy with a strength adequate for the discharge of its Imperial and international obligations. DIPLOMACY AHEAD OF NAVAL POWER. Sir Roger Keyes said it was time a stop was put to the folly of those people who called for disarmament on the one hand and on the other for the closing of the Suez Canal. Diplomacy had gone far ahead of naval power. Although it did not seem to be generally appreciated in Great Britain, the Italians and the French were well aware that practically the whole of the British Navy was engaged in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in order to provide collective which would enable the League of Nations to apply sanctions. He happened to know that it was not a question of France helping ns if we were attacked in the Mediterranean; it was a question of our helping France.