State-owned Shipping.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18403, 9 June 1925, Page 8

State-owned Shipping.

No reason lias been advanced for the withdrawal from sale of the Commonwealth Lino of steamers, announced by cable yegtcnl»y, but the fact that there are no buyers. That is, of course, both a strong reason and an unfortuante one, since there is a very slender hope that Mr Bvuce will obtain the results he is looking fdr from the "tightening up of industrial legislation," a "vigorous building programme" and the "replacing of inefficient tonnage by new vessels." Whether Mr Bruce really has confidence in the new proposals, or has adopted them in sheer desperation, lie will not be encouraged much by the annual ro-' port of -the Canadian Government Merchant Marine which came to hand in our last American mail. The year's balance-sheet showed a deficit of over eight million dollars, and on operation alono thero was a loss of nearly a million and a half dollars. This means that, apart from the payment of interest on various loans, tho expense of operating the Canadian line of 57 Steamers exceeded the gross revenue 'by nearly two hundred thousand pounds. This deficit is certainly half a million dollars less than that shown tho previous year, but that is a melancholy comfort. Socialists talk glibly about tho prospect of easily-earned profits enriching "the people" instead of merely a few "capitalists," but it is in what these advocates refrain from mentioning —such "trifling" points as competition, economy, and the opening of new avenues of trade —that the danger lies. And the trouble is that the failure of the commercial schemes of Governments are never admitted until tho public purse is well-nigh drained. "First "losses are best lossqs," but States in business dare not admit that.