About Shipping

Pacific Subsidies

Another Urgent Warning About Shipping

r I ''HE head of the P. & O. line, Mr. Alex ander Shaw, has again issued a warn ing that if something is not done to relieve the pressure of subsidised American com petition on the Canadian-Australian Steam ship Line in the Pacific there will be serious developments. He told the British, Canad ian, Australian and New Zealand Govern ments that if this British shipping line is replaced by a foreign line, the British line will never be restored.

The Council of the British Empire League also directed urgent attention to the

shipping position in the Pacific and begged for action of some kind.

The matter was brought under the at tention of the Australian Prime Minister in Canberra. Mr. Lyons returned the stereotyped reply that the matter was re ceiving attention. It has been receiving attention for at least two years, and noth ing has been done, apparently—unless we can classify as something Mr. Lyons’s feeble and futile plan of calling a confer ence in London. . . It is enough to make the gods weep. Still, in these democratic days, it is to be supposed that Australians, like everyone else, get the politicians they deserve.

Mr. J. G. C. Campbell, who has been Government Bacteriologist in Fiji, re turned to England at the end of Nov ember.