THE P. AND O. COMPANY.

West Coast Times, 23 March 1910, Page 4

THE P. AND O. COMPANY.

THE POUT OF CALL IN NEW ZEALAND. COLOURED LABOUR QUESTION. WELLINGTON, March 16. There is every indication that, the P. and 0. boats must eventually call at Wellington. This will be a very sad blow for Auckland. Probably Audible wfor Aucklftnd. Probably Auckland may be made the port of arrival, and Wellington the port of departure. I learn (says the Wellington correspondent of the Press) that a visitor just arrived from Sydney states that many intending intercolonial passengers intend waiting for the P. and 0. boat’s. To-night’s Post, in a. leading article, brings up the subject of cheap labour competition. In the course of this article it states; “The entry of the P. and 0. Company into the intercolonial trade raises some difficult questions to which interesting reference was recently made by the Wellington correspondent of the Christchurch Press. The Union Steamship Company and the Huddart, Parker Company have hitherto enjoyed a practical monopoly of that trade, but they have had to work in conformity with the conditions prescribecl from time to time by the Arbitration Court of New Zealand. The Malwa, whoso maiden trip to Auckland was celebrated with such ecstatic jubilation a few weeks ago was under no such obligation, nor under the existing law will the other vessels that will follow her example he in any different position. Not merely are the wages paid for white labour by the P. and 0. pud .other big European companies lower than the rates, which must be paid on a New Zealand steamer, but the wholesale employment by the former of coloured labour multiplies the handicap still further. Being regiscrod outside New Zealand the P. and 0. Company will he able to engage in the Sydney to Auckland trade with just’ as many lascars and as few white seamen as they please. Probably very few people have any but the vaguest idea of how much this handicap represents. A few years ago a valuable scries of articles ill tji<i Mplhmirne Ago, afterwards republished in pamphlet' form under the title “A Mercantile Marine for Australia,” dealt in detail with the competition of the European mail steamers ,with the Australian vessels engaged in the coastal 1 trade, and included a number of tables in which details wei.ji gjvoi) of thp respective rates of pay. .While the locally owned steamers were paying seamen £6 10s a month and. firemen £8 10s the P, and 0. paid £4 5s and £1 4s, and the N.D.L. £2 17s and £3 10s respectively. It is, of course, the employment of Lascars that enables the P. and 0. to pay its firemen 85 per cent. less than th« Australian companies, and so save on the employment of 10 (icemen £B7O per annum,in comparison with its rivals. It would be interesting to have a detailed comparison made out for New Zealand Also, inquiry shows that the difference might in this, engp hp still pilin' startling. The white firemen engaged for the special trip mentioned must have been paid £9. That, any rate, is the now-ruling rate for firemen under the blew Zealand award. The writer of the Age claims to have proved that the West/mn Australian coastal summers if worked by the same number of men as the vessels ol the P. and 0., Orient and N.D.L lines would pay an average of ufore than £13,000 a year in wages than these vessels. As (here is no reason to stippo.se that the New Zealand scale is lower Ilian that, nf Western Australia the estimate may he taken as approximately applicable to the proposed competition In the intercolonial trade. Will it he fair to subject New Zealand shipping to such a handicap? If not, what steps arc to he taken ior its protection when that competition has fully developed.