OBSOLETE SHIPS

Taranaki Daily News, 25 August 1931, Page 11

OBSOLETE SHIPS

FOREIGN SALE WRONG.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY.

An aspect of the prevailing economic depression as it affects the shipping industry was referred to at the annual gathering of Wellington master mariners by Captain W. Stuart (of the Marine Department), who criticised the practice of selling obsolete tonnage to foreign buyers during temporary slackness in trade.

Traversing the principal feature of British shipping during the past twelve months, Captain Stuart said that two and, a-half million tons of shipping was now lying idle, and 50,000 British seamen were unemployed and practically dependent upon State relief. "Wo have got to face this appalling fact,” he said, "and we, as the New Zealand master mariners, have also to ask what is the cause and what is the remedy.

"Firstly, we have the question of obsolete tonnage. Shipping companies to-day are prone to think that the fact that they get rid of a dozen or more of their ships to foreign buyers, more particularly Eastern buyers, is good business. I say it is not good business; it is a mistake.. What do we find? They say that by getting rid of a dozen ’old crocks’ they can get two or three new ships. They forget that the Eastern buyers run those ships with cheap labour, and rim them against their former owners.'

"This policy is all wrong. We want our fleets kept intact during this eYonbmie depression, and at the end of it not find them r mining''with foreign or Eastern * ciWs.” 1 ’ '