HARD-HIT SHIPPING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17236, 16 April 1930, Page 3

HARD-HIT SHIPPING

100 MILES AT ID A TON EMPIRE TRADE RESOLUTION LONDON, Feb. 22. "The fortunes of Die shipping industry seem to he at their lowest ebb, said Sir Aithur Munro Sutherland in his presidential address to the Chamber of shipping of the United Kingdom in Loudon yesterday. He detailed routes on which the sea freight ranged from Id to lj|d a ton for 100 miles, and remarked, “You could not run a baby ear at anything like such a low cost.” He continued;— “The combined burden of taxation and local rates is a serious menace to the competitive power of the nation. “Shipowners, however, feel sure that there will he some recovery this year. “1 hope that this will he a year of Empire development. The first requirement is the development of that spirit of co-operation and that determination to realise and lo make full use of the possibilities of the Empire.” TRADE UNION CONTROL. Sir A. Norman Hill said the shipping industry was hit as hard as any other British industry, if not harder. He continued : "We shall he beaten in the markets of the world if we cannot accommodate ourselves, at least as quickly as other nations, to getting the utmost l'or ottr customers out of the machine, age. "No countries among our competitors are controlled to the same extent by the customs and practices of tlie trade unions. These must he brought into accord with the present realities of productive economy if we are to hold our own.' ’ Sir Alan Anderson, moving a resolution calling for a more systematic study of Empire, trade, development methods, said - "The British Empire's share of world trade is now about 30 per cent., as against 28 per cent, before the war. Forty per cent, of the United Kingdom's, food comes from foreign countries, 40 per emit, from home sources, and 20 per cent, from the Empire overseas.” 'lhe resolution was carried.