SHIPPING COMPETITION.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19011, 31 July 1933, Page 9

SHIPPING COMPETITION.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —-What is wrong with the powers that be in New Zealand? It is a year or two now since the big new American vessels started running, and yet nothing has been done to help local vessels against their unfair competition. There is an estimate of about 70,000 tons of shipping lying idle, and a total of 1000 seamen walking up and down New Zealand looking for work. This unfairness is so obvious when one thinks that vessels are practically given to the ship-owners by the American Government, that they are heavily subsidised, and that their British rivals are shut right out of the Honolulu-United States end of the trade across the Pacific, while the American boats can compete freely between New Zealand and Australia at this- end. New Zealand-manned and Australian-manned vessels are equally concerned in this, and it seems Incredible that neither Government has yet done anything to prohibit the Americans trading between these two British possessions similarly to what the Americans do between their possessions. The colonial Governments may not be much concerned about the interests of the shipowners, but surely they ought to think about the crews and all the other people who depend on the local vessels for their livelihood. —I am, etC " A. J. LILLEY. Hamilton, July 27, 1933.