THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1925. STATE SHIPPING.

Wairarapa Age, 12 March 1925, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1925. STATE SHIPPING.

Whether it be or be not the case that shipping is above all other industries the most unsuited for nationalisation it is certainly significant that all the more important incursions by States into. the /arena of ship-owning have resulted more or less disastrously. A cable message a few days ago contained the information that the Federal Government in Australia had, in view of the losses in which the Commonwealth Shipping Line had involved the taxpayers, resolved to invite tenders for the purchase of the whole of the vessels comprised in the fleet as a going concern under conditions designed to safeguard Australian interests. The statement, however, that the operations of the line for the 13 months ended in September last showed a loss of £480,969, exclusive of depreciation, only faintly indicated the unfavourable results of the operations of the Commonwealth Line. For thia loss followed upon a deficit for 192122 of £1,171,569, and upon another for 1922-23 of £1,626,150, these figures in each instance apparently including provision for depreciation aa well as, interest. Nor is this all. When the control of the line was vested in a Shipping Board in June, 1923, so that It might be entirely removed from political influence, the capital value of the concern was written down from £12,766,588 to £4,718,150, so that the Government at that time acknowledged a loss of eight millions on its adventure into ahip-ownership. It is, therefore, upon this greatly reduced value that the moat recent loss has been incurred. How is it that the Australian Government has been so regularly unfortunate in this enterprise? It has to be recognised that the Commonwealth Line was started under the disadvantage that the whole of the tonnage was either built or acquired during the war period of inflated prices for shipping. But this accounts only in part for the history of the unsuccessful operations of the line. The Shipping Board, which assumed control in September, 1923, has reported to the Government that the present position is due to the high running costs as compared with those of competing lines and to the labour troubles to which the line has been continually subjected. It has also expressed the definite opinion that, even after the elimination of all old and unsatisfactory tonnage, the line cannot be run without a serious loss while the ships are on the Australian register and covered by Australian awards. The singular circumstance is that the protection which was offered to the shipping line, by affording to the crews better conditions than were obtainable in the competing lines, did not preserve the Commonwealth service from the hostility of industrial organisations, and particularly of the seamen’s organisations, in Australia. The “Argus” remarks that if the seamen and others had set out to prove that socialism was a delusion and an hypocrisy they could not have done their work more effectually than they did it in connection with the Commonwealth Shipping Line.