SHIPPING COMPETITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 94, 28 April 1913, Page 4

SHIPPING COMPETITION.

A resolution was pasesd at the last Imperial Conference pointing out the necessity of taking steps to prevent unfair competitiori with British ships, subsidized of foreign ships. Mr Buxton, representing the Board of Trade, stated that British shipping was not subsidized except under unusual circumstances, although the Government was naturally anxious to secure for British vessels equal trading advantages with foreign shipping. The British India Steam Navigation Company, it is undestood, has laid a concrete case before the Government. This company, in keen competition with the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, a subsidized Japanese line which, although it showed a deficit last year of 2,087,209 yen, was able, by means of a subsidy of about £600,000 from the Japanese Government, to pay a dividend of 10 per cent., and to add a considerable sum to their reserve fund. Then, again, not only are the vessels of tin’s line permitted to engage in the coastal trade of India and Ceylon, and to use the subsidy to undercut all British rates, but British ships are denied the opportunity of competing with them in the coastal trade of Japan. In spite of this method of subsidizing, the company are prepared to hold their own in competition with the Japanese firm, providing the Japanese Government either admit British ships into their coastal trade or to place restrictions on those of their subsidized ships at present engaged in the India and Ceylon coastal trade.