LOSS AVOIDED

Southland Times, Issue 21895, 22 December 1932, Page 5

LOSS AVOIDED

ORIENT SHIPPING COMPANY. NO DIVIDEND BEING PAID. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London, December 20. Sir Alan Anderson, who presided at the annual meeting of the Orient Shipping Company, said: “We have been guided in our decision not to pay a dividend not so much by the cash which would enable the payment of a dividend, as by the prospects of trade. The Australian passenger trade does not yet show those clear signs of an improvement which would alone justify the payment of a dividend from the reserves. We have reason to be thankful in this year of collapse. We have not only avoided an actual loss, but have realized a cash profit of £lOO,OOO on holiday cruises which have helped to solve the unemployment problem. Among the world causes of our depression is that one nation after another has been giving enormous subsidies and dumping shipping services on the world with the apparent object of ruining shipowners who try to make ends meet.

“The Matson Line by placing on the San Francisco-New Zealand-Australian run three new vessels whose capital cost and running expenses are much greater—judged by past experience—than the trade will repay is competing with British lines which cannot dip into the public purse and are unable to offer the public such costly vessels. If the Matson Line had found 25,000,000 dollars themselves and were charged normal rates of interest on it or were in any serious risk of having to pay the eventual loss, we might blame them for gambling, but as a grateful nation is taking the risk, we must congratulate them on being safe men and not gamblers.”