SHIPPING CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 89, 9 January 1935, Page 10

SHIPPING CRISIS

Position of British Owners EMPIRE PROBLEM Mr. Basil Sanderson’s Views Tlie causes and effects of the present parlous state of the shipping industry were dealt witli in an interview yester,day by Mr. Basil Sanderson, assistant general manager of the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company, Lid., who arrived at Wellington on Monday by the Mouowai from Sydney on a month’s visit to New Zealand. "It must not be thought.” said Mr. Sanderson, "that the crisis with which the British shipping industry is faced is any new issue simply because it is only latterly that great publicity has been directed to the plight of the industry. The conditions which have been gradually draining the resources of the British shipowner have existed for many years, and for tlie prime causes you liiive to go back as far as the war years, when the factories of Great Britain were diverted from their legitimate trading operations and monopolised for war purposes. Barrier Upon Burner. "The infant industries which many other nations set up to fill the gap left by the temporary absence of British goods from their market would in many eases have failed after the war period was over had it not been the policy of those countries to keep these industries going by means of tariffs and trade barriers. And as it began so it has continued—barrier has been placed upon barrier, restricting more and more tlie exchange of goods between nations and the cargoes thereby available for the shipping of the world.

“To make matters worse, many nations, not content with regulating their imports in this way. have, largely due to the develo-pmeut of national feeling, decided that, to maintain their prestige they must also maintain a national merchant marine. This has led up to the position where, with a dwindling amount of cargo to be carried, the number of ships to carry that cargo has steadily increased. The British shipowner would have been in a sufficiently ■ difficult position in tliis situation, but his difficulties were immeasurably increased by the fact that the merchant navies of certain countries caii only be kept going by large subsidies from the national taxpayers’ pockets. The law of the survival of the fittest no longer thai'efore applies to the sea-borne trade of the world, and the British shipowner cannot expect, as in the past, that uneconomic competition will gradually disappear, bringing with its disappearance a reversion to normal trading for the survivors. "Tlie necessary result has been ttiat the volume of British shipping has been steadily declining owing to companies being forced out of business, ships being sold or laid up, until the industry lias reached such a deplorable financial state that the attention of lI.M. Government has been seriously’ directed toward attempts at salvage before what is one of Great Britain’s greatest industries languishes too far for recovery to be possible. The Only Solution. "Nobody likes subsidies, however, and least of all the shipowner, and it is to be hoped that the assistance of this description now being offered to the tramp section of the industry will only be necessary a.s a temporary precaution,” continued Mr. Sanderson. “Tlie only cure and solution of the evil is to re move the causes, and this problem no doubt the British Government are busy considering together with the Governments of tlie Dominions, for it is an Empire and not purely a problem for the Mother Country. The existence of a powerful and adequate mercantile marine is a necessity if the security of our Empire is to be assured in peace and in war, and this I feel sure is appreciated by all partners in the Commonwealth of Nations comprising that Empire.

“The remedy may lie along the line of trade treaties with those outside nations who are prepared to negotiate on the lines -of reciprocal trade with the British Empire, and for the removal or reduction of tariff barriers to promote the interchange of goods and so increase the volume of world trade. Coupled with that, however, will have to be some agreement assuring the merchant fleets of those nations a fair field and no favour, so that the Britisli shipowners may once more compete upon level terms for such cargoes us are moving.”