GERMAN SHIPPING.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14151, 10 March 1910, Page 6

GERMAN SHIPPING.

THE KAISER'S VIEWS. A sliort time ago ail interview was reported to liave taken place between the Kaiser and a representative of "Shipping Truth." The Kaiser said:— "You English make the one big mistake of always imagining my people are seeking to spoil your trade supremacy on the seas. All my people want is a share of it—of course, as large a one as possible. That I and my neopl© are sincerely desirous of having nothing but the amicable relationship with the English peoples may not be believed m your country, but we are used to being misunderstood. It is strange, and a source of great regret to me, 'that notwithstanding all my protestations and the official statements of mv Ministers, it should. still be possible that your people should cherish so deeply hostile an attitude to mv people in "their trade relations. Why should your people imagine that, by some Divine right, the oversea carrying trade of the world has been specially entrusted to them, to the .exclusion of all other nations in general and the fatherland in particular ? Am I not .to be excused for thinking that your • shipowners' hatred of our great mercantile marino is solely based on the fear of losing still moie of the world s carrying owing to my people's better knowledge of how to conduct it, their better equipped ships, and their contentedness to supply every transit facility at a minimum of cost? You ask me to what I attribute the universal hostility of your shipowners to my people's competition. All competition is disliked by those who have to meet it: but your shipowners are Angry because the days of t<?n, twenty, and thirty yGars ago are gone from tlieln for ever. ! Then they made great profits—extortionate profits. • Why, you people ought to thank my peonle for the very competition of Which you complain. It has reduced transit, costs to you and, all other nations as they would never otherwise' have been reduced. But you English, you are selfish, and suspicious, and you make the mistake of not so encouraging your shipping men by State assistance and by honouring your patriotic ones, so that there shall be some other aim for them -tfcsn mere money gain. You see, I am generous, for in telling you this, I "tell you the secret of* the develorarient of my people's mercantile power on the fleas."