ORIENT SHIPPING CO.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 301, 21 December 1933, Page 9

ORIENT SHIPPING CO.

CHAIRMAN’S REVIEW. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE. LONDON, Dec. 19. At the annual meeting of the Orient Shipping Company, Sir Alan Anderson, . who presided, said the year’s operat- i ing profit was more than double that of 1 the previous year, to which was added a profit of £40,000 from tho sale of investments. The results, therefore, justified a modest dividend. “Tho only doubt which gave us pause in advising it. is that of the future,” he said. “We seem to have entered an epoch in which the best i team rather than the best individual ‘ wins; approach of combination to maintain price and restore trade. It is en- ' couraging to notice the results of com- ' bined effort for the British Empire. If : it had not been spectacular, it was all in the right direction ,and the treaties ' which the Government has arranged with six nations all tend to ease the i floxv and restore the balance of our common trade. “Shipowners criticise one defect of < these treaties, which do not condemn and forbid the unfair competition of i foreign subsidies. I earnestly trust the Government will speedily convince ’ those nations who join the British Em- 1 pire world trade that fair play is as : necessary in the exchange of shipping services as of goods, and that Great Britain cannot afford to buy freely the - goods of nations which set themselves i to prevent Great Britain and her shipowners paying part of the bill in the : form of shipping services. “A. cure is to be found by the Governments here and in the Do- < minions agreeing with other nations, < first, that they want trade; next, on what principles they shall foster and conduct their common trade, and on ] these principles binding themselves to- : gethcr by mutual and exclusive most- ( favoured-nation treaties. Such a club < of world trade should be large enough to restore the market and liberal ( enough to welcome to its ranks every i nation observing its principles, among I which should be freedom of the seas i from national discrimination and un- t economic subsidies* t