The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1935. BRITISH SHIPPING CRISIS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20027, 7 February 1935, Page 8

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1935. BRITISH SHIPPING CRISIS.

One of the most encouraging signs of the times comes to us in the cable messages this morning in the shipbuilding statistics revealed in Lloyds’ annual returns. The reports indicate that 530 vessels were launched in the world last year, totalling 907,419 tons, and of this output 459,877 tons of new ships came out of the shipbuilding yards of Great Britain and Ireland. The increase in the world output amounted to 478,493 and the British increase represented 47.5 per cent, of this total, compared with 27.2 per cent, in 1933. These statistics reveal the confidence that shipowners of all nations cherish in the future of world shipping business. It is not known, however, how many new’ ships went into commission carrying the Red Ensign, but we do know that in the future of the British mercantile marine reposes the fate of the Empire. Sir Archibald Hurd, in an address delivered in London last month pointed out that every day 110,000 tons of merchandise of various descriptions and 50,000 tons of food must be brought into the ports of the United Kingdom in merchant vessels or the country will starve in idleness. Oil is now almost as necessary as food, for without it the Navy, Army and Air Force would be immobilised, many factories would be idle, and even the buses and taxis in the streets would be unable to move. That oil has to come in merchant ships. It is a sad fact, however, that an increasing proportion of all the cargoes that go into the Homeland ports is carried in ships flying foreign flags. The proportion exceeds 40 per cent., and is increasing, owing, first, to the effect of the subsidies paid by some foreign Governments, and, secondly, to the low running costs under some flags. Never before have the people of the Old Land, 4(5,000,000 of them, all expecting three square meals a day, been so dependent on foreign ships as they are now. And yet they are islanders with the sea in their blood, the heirs to the great British seamen of the past. It is a humiliating condition! Commenting on this state of affairs. Sir Archibald said:

We cannot blame the Americans for wanting to foster their mercantile marine; they have every right to do so. We cannot blame the Italians—another great subsidising nation; we cannot blame the Japanese for being determined to have their place in the sun, and it is necessary to remember these peoples point of view—a perfectly legitimate one—when considering the question. These people are determined to have a certain number of merchant ships themselves, and they are going to do that whatever we do. There is a certain amount of trade in the world, the Government subsidy cannot possibly be a permanent remedy; you will have to look to something else—and frankly I can see nothing else except the whole Empire deciding to stand together. The best informed observers insist that if the Empire stood together —which would be difficult because of the different interests—with a major interest of preserving British shipping, others could be led to enter into conference and to agree to a reasonable plan. If the Empire were determined to combine on an Empire plan, and determined to safeguard shipping against what it regarded as unreasonable attack, the Empire would be bound to succeed. The arrangements should cover not only ships but cargoes carried in the ships, and if Britain could make an arrangement of that kind extending to all ports in the Empire, it can be realised at once what a powerful instrument that would be. As one New Zealand journal said in drawing attention to the growing gravity of the plight of British shipping:

. It needs no argument to show that this is a crisis affecting not Great Britain alone, but the British Commonwealth. We are familiar with the contention that a strong Navy is needed to protect the Empire’s trade routes in time of war. Less obvious, but deserving of equal emphasis, is the need for a strong merchant fleet to maintain the Empire’s food supplies in a similar emergency. Our experience in the last war showed how vital these routes were to the overseas producers dependent for their income on the safe delivery of their exports, and to the British consumers brought almost to the famine line by the havoc wrought by enemy submarines preying on our shipping.

It has been repeatedly pointed out that in the light of that experience the Imperial Economic Committee in 1923 passed a long resolution affirming, in effect, the importance of safeguarding British overseas shipping against discrimination by foreign countries, ‘whether open or disguised,’ and declaring that, in the event of danger arising in future through such discrimination, “the Governments of the Empire will consult together as to the best means of meeting the situation.” Clearly, the time has arrived for such a consultation.