WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1930, Page 7

WELLINGTON NEWS

BRITISH SHIPPING. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, January 28. A then annual meeting of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, held in London on Dec. 11, the Chairman, Lord Inchcape had some very interesting statements to make, The P. and 0. Coy has under its control quite a number of shipping concerns including the N.Z. Shipping Coy ami the Union Steamship Company of N.Z. Lord Inchape told the shareholders that during the year tlie combine alone had 322 steamers in commission ; they had entered and letft ports 22,000 times and had traversed over 14,000,000 miles across .the seas.

In a business such as theirs, carrying people of every nationality, they spared no effort to give satisfaction. They received far more eulogistic letters than complaints. In 1928 the steamers of the P.and 0., its allies and. associated companies had safely transferred over 2,000,000 passengers, and last year they carried 2,202,000 passengers across 17,000,000 miles of ocean without the loss of a single life.

The P. and 0. steamers, alone had carried 89,377 passengers against 82,954 in the previous year. Port entrances and port clearances made by the Company’s steamers and those of its allies and associate companies during the year totalled 30,084; cargo carried 15,796,564 tons; heads of live stock carried 322,855 average daily crew employed 36,902; average daily expenditure for wages and victualling of crew £14,452. Cargo exceeded by 92,000 tons that of previous year. They were careful to .see that their vessels never left port overloaded. They got a certificate before each sailing signed hv the captain, the chief officer, the cliieif engineer, the doctor and the purser, certifying that all on board was in order and to their satisfaction. The trade with India and China had been poor. India showed signs of improvement, but the continued unrest in Oiina was militating against a revival in that country. Probably at no time in the history of British shipping had the outlook for what were known as tramp steamers been more gloomy than it was to-day. At the moment there was more cargo tonnage in the world than was required to carry the trade. Ships had a way of wearing out, but there was no inducement for tramp owners to replace them at present day prices. Referring to the eight-hour sea day, Lord Incheape said that notwithstanding that for some time past shipping as a whole had not been doing well they were faced with all sorts of ideas such as the eight-hour day on board ship, which, if brought to fruition would add to their difficulties and would do the men not a particle of good. Discipline on board ship had always been one of the very first essentials. In the old sailing ship days when beating to windward, the ship had to go about? every four hours, it was “all hands on deck”, and the watch below had to tumble up, which they did growling and cursing the wind.

In steamships that sort of thing seldom happened, the crew as a rule have their watch below undisturbed and, occasionally they might have more than eight hours on deack in the twenty four, they had many of. these hours, only standing by, with no expenditure of tissue. They had bed, board and lodging at their doors and did not have miles to travel to and from their work, as in the case of men ashore who did their eight hours a day/Salt Salt horse out of the harness cask, on board steamers at any rate had given way to fresh meat and limejuice had been replaced by fresh provision. The days of sail had practically come to an end. The cry of the steward at the break of the poop, when the ship, after a hard struggle by all hands, had been put about, was not so often heard ns it was when he (the speaker) was a boy. Then it used to be “Grog-oh forward.” With respects to the assets of the P. and 0. Coy, Lord Inchcape stated that if they discharged all the current preference shares of the P. and 0. and combined companies and repaid the preference shares o'f he P. and 0. and all allied companies to-gether with their debentures and their debenture stock they could do. this from their cash and securities, and there would be a balance left of something approaching 2 or 3 millions sterling, which would be the property of the P. and 0. deferred and preferential stock holders. In addition to this the deferred and preferred stock holders would be the absolute proprietors of 318 unencumbed steamers of 2,074,563 tons gross register, which, if valued at their original cost less 4 per cent per annum depreciation, the rate allowed by the Income Tax Commissioners, would be Worth £46,863,004. Under its profit sharing scheme the company holds deposits of £1,000,000 by 1200 workers on which 7) interest is paid. The deposits were practically at call.