SHIPPING"AFTER THE WAR

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1800, 12 March 1918, Page 4

SHIPPING"AFTER THE WAR

The possibilities of an attempt being made to nationalise the shipping industry - after the war were referred io by Lord Incheape at the last annual meeting of the P. and 0. Company.- Lord Incheape stated that all shipping was now being worked on Government account.- He said they madc.no complaint while the war was on, but they did wan| an assurance that when the war ended they would be released from the position of Civil servants, and that the incentive to individual enterprise and initiative would be theirs again. “Attempts,” he said, “have been made to get some declaration of policy from the Government as to their attitude to shipping after • the war. This is only natural, in view of the fact that Government has embarked in the building of merchant ships. We are frequently assured that there is no intention of nationalising shipping, but so far no official pronouycement has been made. The nearest approach to this is a remark recently made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the amount now being invested in standard ships will come back to the Treasury after the war when the ships are sold. We constantly hear eulogies passed on the services which the mercantile marine has rendered to the country during this war. We see it reported that' Germany and other countries are to help shipowners to rebuild their ilcets, and at the same time we observe a disposition on the part of certain section in this country, notwithstanding all that shipowners by their enterprise and energy have done for the nation, to wrest their business from them and to work the shipping imlustryri'.s a national affair. No wonder there is considerable unrest on the part of owners. Xo wonder fleets are being sold. The wonder is that anyone can be found to have the courage to buy them! 1 may he wrong, but I am sanguine enough to hope that no Government will be so ill-advised as to kill the shipowning industry of the British Empire and to try and work it as a Government concern, and I go further than this, and I say if they attempt to interfere with it or to control it while they cannot control that of other countries they will land it in ruin. Meantime, the cash resources of the P. ami 0. Company and its allies, which in ordinary course would have been put into new ships, have been lent to the Government to help to finance the war - . These resources will he available to pay for new tonnage when we aro permitted to build new ships. If it should be evident that such a time is never to come again, and that it i. 4 the intention to wipe out private enterprise and to turn the British mercantile marine into a State Department managed by officials tied up with red tape, then wo shall distribute our resources among our shareholders, after making proper provision for our employees, make our bow and Jet the curtain fall on what has hitherto been the supremacy of British mercantile shipping on the seven seas.”