WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1935. EMPIRE SHIPPING

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 95, 16 January 1935, Page 8

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1935. EMPIRE SHIPPING

Eighteen countries, we are told in a cabled message to-day, participated in the discussions at a preliminary meeting of the International Shipping Conference in London. 1 hat fact in itself is evidence that the problem is of much wider concern and urgency than the nearer question of the rehabilitation of our Empire shipping. _ As , one result, the conference has agreed to concentrate upon the proposition of rationalisation as a possible solution of what is now recognised to be an international problem.' From Britain’s point of view, and in varying degrees from the points of view of her international competitors, the shipping problem has two aspects. One relates to the economic well-being of the shipping industry in peace, and the other to the vital importance of the merchant navy in war. The former is of grave urgency; the latter, in present circumstances, cannot be ignored. Rationalisation may seem at the moment to be the most sensible method of placinginternational shipping on a sounder economic basis. It is the present policy of the British Government. The difficulty will be for all the nations to agree upon the basis of rationalisation. Should it be .1914 or 1934? Britain’s subsidised foreign shipping competitors, with their coastal and their inferior standards of living •and wages scales, have captured during the last 20 years a substantial proportion of her trade. It is hardly to be supposed that they would be willing to surrender their gains unless it could be shown conclusively that the subsidised shipping policy adopted by their Governments was actually, as the United States has discovered, a bad proposition for their national treasuries. i Britain is very largely dependent upon its sea-borne trade for its prosperity in peace, but, as experience in the Great War proved, this dependence becomes vital to the nation’s existence should communications be interrupted by hostilities. It was pointed out in a recent discussion in this connection that if the Admiralty required the same amount of personnel from the Merchant Service now as was asked in 1914, it could not be given on the present tonnage. That would mean that within a very short time after a declaration of war there would be insufficient food supplies for Britain. I his aspect of the question is so serious that it would be almost suicidal to neglect it. Britain’s shipping problem therefore can hardly be paralleled by those of other nations, and the difficulty of reconciling interests so widely different would seem at the moment to be, if not insuperable, at any rate so troublesome as greatly to minimise the hope of any practical results ensuing from the conference now sitting.