COMPETITION GROWING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1022, 12 July 1930, Page 10

COMPETITION GROWING

DOMINION SHIPPING SERVICES AFFECTED THE AMERICAN SYSTEM t The increasing tendency of foreign shipping interests to enter into the ira.de which has hitherto been operated by New Zealand-owned steamers is indicated by the possibility of the extension of the Osaka Sliosen Kaishu between Japan and Australia. The Dominion’s trans- Pacific and trans-Tasman services will therefore J:ave to compete with services having the *Cdvantage of a more expensive* itinerary. An illustration of the similarity between shipping services and internal industries in the matter of protection is shown by the steps which have been taken by the United States. Liberal belp has been given to mercantile service by the U.S.A. Government, with the object of developing and assuring the permanency of a service adequate lor the transportation of the country’s foreign -trade. FUND £ 50,000,000 The Jones-White Act, passed in Slay, 1928, established a fund of [£50,000 to be used for loans, on very generous terms, to shipowners desiring to build new' vessels. The Act also authorised the payment of mail subsidies on a mileage basis, according to a graduated scale worked out on the tonnage and speed of the subsidised vessels, without any regard to the amount of mail carried. Thus a Trans-Atlantic greyhound might draw £2 10s a mile and a small cargo a»teamqr 6s. The efficacy of this system in competing with foreign lines is shown in the monthly cargo service which has been operated since 1928 by the Oceanic and Oriental Navigation Company, between the Pacific Coast and New Zealand. The Golden West, which arrived at Auckland from San Francisco on June 29, brought 74 bags of mail. Since the service is subsidised at the rate of 10s 6d a nautical mile, the owners received a subsidy of nearly £3.000 for the voyage, representing in this instance about £4O for each bag of mail carried. Some time ago one of the steamers brought only tw r o bags of letters. If the project of the Osaka Shosen Kaisha line is put into effect it will •not only stimulate trade between the Dominion and the Orient but will react on the distribution of the existing cargo traffic between Australia and New Zealand.