The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1916. THE SHIPPING SCANDAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 115, 17 May 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1916. THE SHIPPING SCANDAL.

(With which is incorporated The Tai tape Post and Waimarino News.)

Further light has been thrown on the; 'effrontery and shamelessness of Shipping Companies by the Wellington; Chamber of Commerce, which body has had the subject of outrageously high freights under consideration forborne time past. At its last meeting "Returns were submitted which disa system of robbery that should be ftpiishable in any civilised country. In phssiug 'it may be mentioned that the i {‘Statist” was quoted at the meeting,! iwhich disclosed the precise shipping! position. At the commencement of War the British Government commandeered about 35 per cent of shipping, but beyond this a large volume of tpnnage was requisitoned for the carriage of foodstuffs, so that altogether Government has commandeered about 50 per cent of the entire mercantile tonnage. This brought about an unparalleled rise in freights, until at the present time the increase amounts in some instances to over 1000 per cent, the average being 800 per cent. Whether this at,tempt at' starving the Empire, to death while millions of its best men arc lighting ! for its existence will be disclosed by j the; profits shipping companies are is clearly shown in the following figures. Homeward freights have suffered almost equally with freights to the outlying Dominions and other countries. The “Statist” shows that the rise in freight rates carries with it, not only an immense addition to the profits of shipowners, but a corresponding addition to the profits of growers and particularly to those of merchants who had accumulated large stocks of foodstuffs, raw material, and other goods imported before the recent huge and unjustifiable rise in freight rates. The additional cost to the British people, while millions are risking their lives for the shipping leeches, i s at least £300,000,000, and this is altogether apart from the 50 per cent of profits which have to be paid into the Treasury, while including that tax the increase of shipowners’ profits puts an additional strain on the British public pockets amounting to £400,000,000, and this only gince war began. JWar

conditions have been used by Shipping companies to exact this huge amount from producers, and workers, who are straining every effort to win the war. Is it surprising that workmen and workwomen chafe under such criminal exactions? An illuminating table is published by the “Statist” making it quite clear how the poor shipping companies are suffering from the high cost of everything, losses by submarines and the host of other calamities that there is a perpetual wail about. This table ought to be studied well by every intelligent patriot, for it provides an object lesson that is already converting, even hitherto unreasonable extremists who favoured private enterprise. Here we have private enterprise with a vengeance, Which if permitted to go much further would undoubtedly be met by revolution or something worse. These figures from the Statist ought to be well pondered over, anyone that would deliberately avoid them is not a fit subject for the franchise. In 1913 the gross earning of B'ritish shipping amounted to £127,000,000, while in 1916, despite the 50 per cent of tonnage commandeeredr by Government, they were £400,000,000 being an increase of £283,000,000. It is scarcely conceivable that such audacity and shamelessness can exist; but following it further we find the net profits ;n 1913 ran into £20,000,000 while ia 1916 they netted £230,000,000 only, an increase of net profits amounting to 1150 per cent. Then again it is intensely interesting to see how these profits stand in relation to capital invested. In 1913 the total capital of British Shipping Companies was £192,000,000 on which they made a profit of £20,000,000. In 1916 the capital invested has increased by £8,000,000 making the capital to-day £200,000,000, but the net earnings have jumped up to £115,000,000, an increase of 575 per cent ever the net profits of 1913. While the dependents of soldiers are wanting, and while we in New Zealand cannot make our earnings provide more than a bare existence, these shipping companies are levying a freight tax on the transport of our produce shipped to Britain giving them net profits amounting to well on the way to £300,000,000 cr enough net profits in a year and a half to equal the whole sum total of the capital they have invested, and this while the Empire and the people are in extremities hitherto unprecedented. In its discussions, the Wellington Chamber of Commerce realised that New Zealand shipping companies were not so outrageously extortionate as the British, but they were quite convinced that something should be don e to bring about more reasonable and decent arrangements. A suggestion that shipping should be national!sd was loudly applauded by ! the Chamber. As one member remarked “New Zealand people were asked to pay towards the Navy to protect these wealthy shipping firms, and he thought it was wrong to allow them to make such huge profits when they did not Play the game even. They asked the men on the lowest rung of the social ladder to sacrifice their lives for the Empire, but they were not protecting these men and their dependents as they ought.” These remarks were concurred in by the whole Chamber as the loud applause they elicited fully indicated. No greater argument in favour of the Nationalisation of shipping than the above figures disclose can exist; it is impossible, indeed unthinkable, that tins country can much longer put up with the strangulation of its trade the thieving propensities of shipping companies are gradually drawing tighter. Why should New Zealand farmers and others work and produce to have their earnings filched —just filched —by shipping companies? This question has to be dealt with at no distant date and it is hoped this district will do its share towards bringing about a more honest state of affairs.