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EUROPEAN SHIPPING, Britain Plans Subsidy, ping policy has been to avoid any form of government assistance as far as possible. All trade was thrown open in 1849 and since then subsidies granted to shipping have been for purely imperial purposes or for value more than received in the carriage of mails. But it has proved impossible to carry on with this policy any long- er and, on the strict understanding that it is only a temporary measure, as the overwhelming majority of British shipowners desire, the board of trade has at long last put forward its suggestions for the assistance of British tramp shipping which have been in the air for many months. The tramp shipping committee put forward a suggestion at the end of last year that tramp vessels should be directly subsidized by a payment of 10 shillings per gross ton per an- num while they are running and half that sum while they are laid up. The tetal cost of this subsidy would have been £2,500,000 per annum; but the government, after careful considera- tion, could not see its way clear to grant this request and turned it down. British shipping is very large- ly a question of employment and in the view of the ministry it would be impossible to justify a subsidy for ships laid up which were providing no employment at all, and further that with such a flat rate of subsidy it would be impossible to guarantee that the taxpayers’ money might not be dissipated by the domestic compe- tition of British tramps without ref- erence to their foreign rivals at all. It is not at all difficult to understand this point of view. Fo: over eighty years British ship- Britain to Grant Subsidy But the president of the board of trade has announced that the gov- ernment is willing to grant a sub- sidy, limited to one year, for de- fensive purposes, provided that it costs no more than two _ million pounds. It is to be clearly under- stood that the assistance is to be aimed at securing the abolition of foreign subsidies and the greater em- ployment of British shipping and that it can only be given on condi- A quarterly review of European ship- ping. The first and second articles for this year appeared in the February and May issues respectively. The fourth article will appear in the November issue. 10 tion that the shipowners themselves formulate a scheme satisfactory to the government. Hitherto all efforts to obtain complete agreement among British shipowners, particularly in the tramping section, have proved im- possible but on this occasion it may be that a compromise reasonable to all parties will be arrived at. Conditions Must Be Met The government has contented itself with laying down two condi- tions, firstly, that such a scheme must prevent as far as possible the sub- sidy from being dissipated by com- petition between British tramps themselves and secondly, that it must ensure that the subsidy is ef- fectively directed to securing the greater employment of British ship- ping at the expense of its subsidized foreign rivals. Even in the 12 months for which it is planned it is sub- ject to withdrawal if the circum- stances which led to its introduction have altered. It is suggested that it should also be a condition that the shipowners, through their organiza- tions and in any other ways open to them. should press upon the ship- owners of other maritime countries the framing of proposals tending to adjust the supply of tonnage in the world to the present demand, and thus to raise freight rates once more to a remunerative level. Although it is not a part of the definite proposal put before the house, the government had been im- pressed by the improvements which have been made in the form and pro- pulsion of cargo ships within recent years and it is, apart from the tramp- ing subsidy, prepared to place at the disposal of the shipowners finan- cial help on favorable terms for scrap- ping older and extravagant British cargo tonnage and providing in its place a smaller number of up-to-date ships. This assistance may be ap- plied either to the construction of new ships or the modernization of old ones. This last suggestion should be of great encouragement to the _ ship- builders who are still in a very bad way. It is true that the percentage of unemployment is appreciably low- er, having dropped from 58.7 to 47.6 in a year, but in addition to more jobs it must be remembered that these figures are affected by natural MARINE REVIEw—August, 1934 Shipyards Busier BY FRANK C. BOWEN wastage and the lack of apprentices coming into the business. The fig- ures, although encouraging, cannot therefore be regarded as satisfactory and the more thoughtful of the La- bor men fully realize this. It was this realization that ted to a compro- mise on the welding labor question in favor of the employers’ case, but some points in the matter are re- served. Unfortunately not all shipbuilding labor takes this reasonable view and the London boilermakers are, at the time of writing, on strike on what is obviously a frivolous case. The em- ployers were asked to submit certain suggestions for discussion and bar- gaining and the local boilermakers’ society was to do the same. But the latter did not send in its suggestion at all and immediately the employ- ers’ proposals were received the men struck without discussing them, al- though there was no question of the employers endeavoring to put them into force. It is significant that the head office of the Boilermakers’ so- ciety, which has the reputation of always looking for a scrap, refuses to countenance this strike while mem- bers of the society in cther centers are eagerly snapping up the work which the London men have thrown away. At the same time the shipbuilding industry is faced with a difficult problem although happily ‘t has been presented in a proper manner and is to be fully and fairly discussed. The unions suggest a 40-hour week with- out loss of pay instead of the pres- ent 47 hours, the reason being the absorption of shipyard workers now unemployed. A case has been pre- sented which gives full weight to present conditions with the increased use of machinery, but no mention is made of foreign competition and the fact that Dutch and German yards are always on the lookout to snap up British repair jobs, while in new con- struction the Scandinavian yards have recently been quoting about £1 per gross ton less than the British yards for motor tankers. Shipbuilding Orders in Prospect At the same time the shipbuilding industry has reasonable hopes of a number of good orders in the imme- diate future. The Canadian Pacific line, according to reliable sources,