PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O.885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Thirteenth Day.
8 May 1907.
COASTWISE TRADE. (Mr. Lloyd George.)
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America, will not be allowed to enter the Australian coastwise trade. In fact, Australia will hit us harder than even France in that respect. If Australia wants to help British shipping, far and away the most effective way would be to treat us a little more generously in the matter of merchant shipping legislation. I am bound to say that, because the resolution comes from Australia.
Mr. DEAKIN: Quite right, and I think there will be every desire to do it. The only question is how far can we do that consistently with maintaining the standard, as we propose it, for our own shipping owned in Australia, We shall fix a or at all events running entirely in Australian waters. certain standard which will be fair, or believed to be, fair and just, and require them to live up to it. Having done that, how can we destroy their whole trade to others by omitting those others from the same obligations?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am not complaining so much about the vessels which trade exclusively along your coast. I agree there is a good deal of reason in what you say now, that if you impose these very heavy regulations upon your own ships, you have a right to demand that British ships should also conform, otherwise they would enter into your coastwise trade under conditions which would handicap your own shipping. But take a case of this sort, take a great liner proceeding from this country to Australia. She calls, say at Fremantle; she picks up a couple of passengers who find out that that particular liner is much more convenient and perhaps more comfortable than the boats that may be trading between Fremantle and Sydney, and they say: "We will go on from Fremantle to Sydney in that British ship, which happens to sail at the very time we want to proceed." According to your new proposals, as interpreted by Sir William Lyne, the moment a ship picks up even a couple of passengers, every regulation of your coasting trade will apply. She will have to put on the same number of stewards, the same number of hands, as your ships must in your coasting trade. Not merely that, but supposing that there is not the same kind of accommodation which you demand on your own ships, the whole structure of this big liner has to be altered, because a couple of passengers are picked up at Fremantle and dropped at Sydney, for the convenience of the Australian people. That, I consider, is a far worse sort of regulation that you impose upon us, than anything we have to contend with in any foreign part of the world.
Mr. DEAKIN: As a matter of fact, the recommendations of our own Commission exempt the voyage from Fremantle to Adelaide.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Perhaps I have taken the wrong port. I hear there is something about a railway from Fremantle, and ships are to be exempt until the railway is made. But take any other port. If a liner calls at any Australian port and picks up a couple of passengers and drops them at another Australian port-I need not necessarily take Fremantle-the whole of those obligations which are most onerous and ruinous to British ships, will apply, and the result will be that they will be driven altogether out of the Australian trade.
Mr. DEAKIN: The coastwise trade.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The only thing we got passed at the Conference after some difficulty, was that the same obligation should be imposed upon
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foreign ships. Before you give us preference, you had better start by giving Thirteenth Day. us equality.
8 May 1907.
COASTWINE TRADE.
Mr. DEAKIN But do you understand that the Report of the Com- mission was to that effect? My recollection is that a distinction was to be drawn between British and foreign ships.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very doubtful how you can impose this restriction upon foreign ships. International obligations may prevent you imposing it on foreign ships; and at any rate, you should give us the advantage of international amenities for our own ships. We ask you to treat us as a foreign nation, at any rate.
Mr. DEAKIN: I think you will find your ships much better treated than foreign ships.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Do not drive us out because we are British. That is all we ask.
Mr. DEAKIN: You are entitled to ask anything you like, whether relevant to the actual facts or not. So far as I am aware, the Reports of the Commission have recommended a distinction between British and foreign ships. So your suggestions do not fit in with the facts.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We were at the Navigation Conference. We had all the big steamship lines represented. They were exceedingly alarmed by this interpretation which was placed upon the proposals, and I do not think it was challenged. We had the labour people there who are dominant in the situation, and they said, "If we cannot impose these regulations on foreign ships, we can do it on British ships at any rate.'
Mr. DEAKIN: We had a Commission which sat and reported-not the Government but only a Commission-and its proposal was, I think, to give British ships an advantage. It will be ours.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I am very glad to hear this, and I am glad of this discussion if it has only elicited that, which we failed to elicit at the Shipping Conference.
Mr. DEAKIN: When you are referring to Australia and ships being excluded, you mean in every instance from the coastwise trade and that alone?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, the instance I gave was that of a big liner proceeding with a cargo.
Mr. DEAKIN: That is Australian coastwise trade. You pick it up at one port and drop it at another. The liner also carries goods from outside Australia and your words might be read to cover that trade as well.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, I still press that, because it is very important. Our shipowners asked you, if you wanted to insist upon these coastwise obligations being imposed on British ships, that you should confine them at any rate to the cargo that was picked up. Take, for instance, a couple
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(Mr.
Lloyd George.)