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These Conferences make deferred rebates at regular intervals to those firms who have found it convenient to confine their shipments to the association during a fixed period.
Certain classes of cargo however such as rice from Japan and Sugar from the Philippines are not included in these agreements. There are also other goods which can be shipped by outside vessels without invalidating claims to Conference rebates; but it must be taken that on those trade routes where a Shipping Conference exists the bulk of the business is carried by Conference Steamers.
Even where actual Conferences do not exist it has been found desirable in several instances to make local agreement in order to ensure frequent and regular sailings, without the cut-throat competition which so often arises if the various lines engaged in one trade are working absolutely independently of each other.
This is exemplified by the agreements under which certain British and Chinese Companies engaged in the river, and coasting trade of China pool their earnings on certain routes, the rates of freight however fluctuating with the supply of, and demand for, tonnage, or by the amount of competition encountered from other lines.
Two British and a German line also work an agreement on the China to Australian route, but here again rates fluctuate in the same manner as on the China Coast.
These Conferences are not all governed on the same principle, but as a rule it amounts to this that certain lines on any one route are associated and while they may limit or entirely exclude outside tonnage from taking the berth, on the other hand they undertake to provide ample tonnage, sufficient to meet all reasonable requirements and ordinary fluctuations of demand for Steamers at more or less fixed and unchanging rates of freight.
Reverting to the evidence received from those