FINANCIAL STORMS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1932, Page 6

FINANCIAL STORMS

AUSTRALIA’S ONE-WAY TRADE. WELLINGTON, January 19. “Shipping is a very sensitive barometer of any financial storms that may be brewing, and along with other companies the Orient Line for some time ■has been feeling the effects of the depression,’’ said Mr Colin S. Anderson, a London director of the Orient Line, in an interview. Tn the shipping world, he said, passenger services had shown a deplorable falling off. Australian cargo wa s being carried only one way, owing to the almost complete cessation of imports into the country.

“Luckily Australia this year produced almost a record export ol primary products, which helped to make the position more cheerful for the exporters,” said Mr Anderson. "Unfortunately, however, the freights of most of the shipping companies lie in one direction. The falling-off in the passenger trade applies °nly the Orient Line, but nl so to shipping in general. For instance, the number ol wealthy travellers across the Atlantic has dwindled to an alarming extent.

“Shipping 'Tines are living on what prudence in the past has enabled them to put- by for an occasion such as this, 'which is a. very good example of 'the necessity for all commercial concerns to have something in reserve.” Mr Anderson said the people in Australia set mod to have gained confidence and to have become more optimistic. He hoped that this .meant Uie beginning of a recovery from the depression.