SHIPPING TRADE SLACK

Taranaki Daily News, 7 October 1931, Page 15

SHIPPING TRADE SLACK

THE UNION COMPANY. PASSENGERS AND CARGO. In the course of his address on behalf of the shipping companies in the Arbitration Court in Wellington during the hearing of an application by the Cooks’ and Stewards’ Union for a new award, Mr. W. G. Smith, of the Union Steam Ship Company, made some comments on the condition of New Zealand shipping and how it was affected by the depression and competition from other countries. “New Zealand shipowners are now severely handicapped by competition from American, Canadian, Danish, Swedish, Japanese and other foreign ships in the trans-Pacific trade, who pay very much lower wages than are paid in New Zealand, and their working conditions are such that very little, if any, overtime is paid, and their manning scales are less,” he said. “In addition, the American ships receive a subsidy varying from 1.50 dollars to 12 dollars a mile, according to size and speed. In addition to this, the American Government advances to ' the shipowners, at varying rates of interest, the maximum being 4J per cent., 75 per cent _ of the total cost of building the ships for foreign trade. The Japanese ships engaged in foreign trade are also heavily subsidised. “This competition has been recently accentuated owing to some of these ships taking cargo from New Zealand to Australia, and vice versa, and as some of them hav« accommodation for passengers they will be trying to secure some of this traffic as well. As a matter of fact, the Swedish ship Mirrabooka recently carried 23 passengers on the Pacific run, who ordinarily would have travelled on the company’s mail boat. The Matson Line has now commenced a service from San Francisco to -Auckland, and in addition to taking passengers from and to America, is also carrying passengers between Fiji, Auckland and Sydney, and vice versa. The ships from Japan used to discharge their New Zealand cargo in Australia, transhipping some to Union Company’s steamers, so we have now lost this transhipment business. “The American and Canadian cargo, ships until recently ran separate services to Australia and New Zealand, but owing to the falling-off in trade the services are now combined, the ships calling first at New Zealand ports before proceeding to Australia, and there is a risk of their competing in the intercolonial trade from New Zealand to Australia. “Owing to the slackness of trade, the Union Company had, for the first time in its history, to reduce the New Zealand and Sydney passenger service to one intercolonial steamer for five months of the past year, and has reluctantly been compelled to do this again this year, the falling-off in passenger traffic being very heavy. The Melbourne steamer Malieno has also had to be withdrawn owing to the heavy loss in that trade.- The week-end excursions to the Marlborough Sounds by the Tamahine have also had to be abandoned this year owing to the lack of bookings. “In addition to this, _ the falling-off in cargo has been extensive, due to the financial state of affairs in Australia, the rate of exchange and the tariff walls which have of late years been raised to absurd heights, not only by the United States of America, but even by Canada and Australia. This has resulted in the laying-up'of a number of the company’s steamers, necessitating the services of a number of officers being dispensed with and commanders having to step back to mates and chief engineers to junior rank. A number of seamen, stewards and cooks are consequently out of employment. “One of the best illustrations of the slackness of trade is the laid-up tonnage. In the British Empire there has been an increase of 300 per cent, in the laid-up tonnage during the past year, the British total on July 1 being 2,044,092 tons net, representing nearly 3,250,000 tons gross, or about four and three-quarter million tons dead-weight.”