4.
(c) Trade Unions in Hong Kong were embryonic and fragmented;
wages were low and amenities for sailors poor. There
would therefore be a flight from the London to the Hong Kong Register and British seamen and officers would lose their jobs. Ratings would suffer especially.
(a) They were especially concerned that the Hong Kong Government would abuse its freedom to give dispensations to unqualified officers. They held this was happening already (though they did not explain how the establishment of a separate Register would make matters worse). There was already a world-wide shortage of ships' officers, and the hoped-for increase in the supply could only be brought about by lowering professional standards.
(e) One spokesman said a change to the Aliens Restriction
(Amendment) Act would be sufficient to meet all the Hong Kong owners' legitimate demands. But this suggestion was not pursued.
(f) Mr. Goff thought HMG might as well scrap the Merchant Shipping
Acts if it was going to sponsor moves of this kind.
In general, the Unions seemed too unwilling to accept the present existence and extent of registration under flags of convenience; too concerned about relaxations in standards already taking place; and too anxious about the competition their members were meeting from lower paid and less well qualified aliens, to examine the DTI proposals in detail or to suggest changes in them which might provide better safeguards.
5. The Minister said he understood their fears that a flight from the London register to the new one in Hong Kong might endanger their members' jobs: but he found it hard to see the weight of their other arguments. But he undertook to consider all the points they had made before reaching a decision.
Aflane
A. J. Lane
че
PS/Minister for Aerospace and Shipping
1 Victoria St.
18.4.73
K