Shipowners Want Tariffs Lowered

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 379, 13 June 1928, Page 9

Shipowners Want Tariffs Lowered

MEETING IN LONDON INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian Press Association) Reed. 11.5 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. The International Shipping Conference, comprising 100 delegates, representing Britain, Europe, America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, has opened. Sir Charles Holds worth, managing director of the Union Steam Ship Company, represents New Zealand. S i r William

Henry Seager, in his presidential address, said that while he was unable to offer congratulations o n any prosperity, nevertheless, the industry was holding its own. There was no desire to eliminate competition, provided it was fair and was

consistent with international comradeship and community interests. The conference adopted a resolution embodying proposals emanating from the World Economic Conference at Geneva, and the International Chamber of Commerce at Stockholm in 1927, advocating a reduction in excessive tariffs, and protesting against their operating to the detriment of agriculture, whose products form the basis of the world's trade. Mr. Stimming, general director of the Nord Deutscher Lloyd, in seconding, pointed out that Germany faced a crisis in agriculture, therefore it welcomed the provision of tariff reductions. These must be indispensible to agricultural production. Sir Alan Anderson, summing up, denied that shipowners were unnecessarily either free-traders or protectionists, although they might be either according to the interests of their respective countries. What they did believe in was not tariff barriers, but their regulation. Hence, the shipowners combined under the name of “Conference,” by which unfair competition was restricted within certain spheres. He advocated the adoption of a similar policy by the great trades of the various nations.