SHIPPING PROFITS

Otago Witness, Issue 3313, 12 September 1917, Page 24

SHIPPING PROFITS

"IT WAS UTTERLY DISGRACEFUL." (Feom Ooh Own Correspondent ) LONDON, July 10. " The profits of shipping, I think, were a perfect scandal in the first two years of the war," said the Prime Minister in the course of his epeech at Dundee. "Profiting is fair recompense for services rendered either in production or distribution. Profiteering is .an extravagant recompense given for services rendered. I believe that to be unfair in peace. In war it is an outrage.—(Cheers.) That is why we have taken action —very necessary action—to restrict the profits of shipping—which I think were a perfect scandal in the first two years of the war, —profits in mines, and we propose to deal very drastically with unfair profiteering in food." A day or two earlier Mr Bonar Law, in a debate in the House on the excess profits clauses of the Finance Bill, narrated his own experience in shipping. It was very wrong of the Government to have allowed such profits to be made. He did not attribute blame to the shipowners—they had done precisely what others had done, —the fault was the fault of the Government. If they had allowed profits on this scale to go on, the more it became known among all classes the more useless it would have been to ask anybody to make sacrifices in carrying on the war. He rather disliked giving his own experiences in shipping because he was really ashamed of it. It was utterly disgraceful that in a time of war any class of the community, while others were suffering every kind of privation, should be able to make largo profits such as he would point out. It was absolutely disgraceful that it should have been allowed. He invested in 15 different shipping companies under the management of seven different owners. He admitted they were all tramp steamers, and possibly they did better than liners. Ho had no reason to doubt that this was a fair representation of the profits of the owners of tramp steamers during the war. The sum of money he invested in shipping was £BllO. Five "per cent, interest on that, which in ordinary times he should have been glad to get, would be £405. For the year 1915, instead of £405 ho received £3624; for the yo#r 1916 ho received £3847. Mr C Duncan : Good Lord ! —(Laughter.) Mr Denniss: Was that after paying excess profits? Mr Bonar Law: Yes. Mr Hogge: What about conscience money? Mr Bonar Law said that did not end the matter. Prudent managing shipowners did not divide all the profits. One of these steamers had either been sold or sunk —ho did not know which. Either way, she had been turned into money for himself. In that ship he had £2OO, t and after the very handsome dividend which he received, on liquidation ho received a cheque for a little over £IOOO. There was another shipping company in which he invested £350. The other day he received a letter from the managing owners of that company naying that, because the cost of building was so high, it was not probable they would wish toinvest the money in ships for a long time to come. Therefore they were going to make a division out of the surplus capital. For that £350 capital on this division he received a cheque for £IOSO. That was the trade they were ruining. Commander Wedgwood Benn pointed out fhat according to the Statist the cross earnings of shipping in 1916 were 410 millions, compared with 127 millions in 1913. They had made a net profit of 250 millions in 1916, as against 20 millions in 1913. The man in the street wanted to know who paid that 250 millions. It came out of the pockets of those who bought the goods those ships carried.

Lord Inverclyde complains of .the Chancellor'e attack, and suggests that he_ should have averaged the results of all his shipping investments instead of giving only the most profitable. His strongest point, though, is the plea that the nation will bo glad after the war if shipowners, by declining to divide all their profits, shall have put together reserves sufficient for the great task of restoring lost tonnage to our mercantile marine.