PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
8 May 1907.
COASTWISE TRADE.
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Thirteenth Day. of passengers picked up; if you want to impose your own regulations in respect of those two passengers, by all means do it; but if you insist that the whole ship should be altered and hundreds of other passengers affected by your laws so that they suddenly find themselves within the coastal regulations because of picking up a minimum cargo of this sort, I must say that such a requirement is perfectly oppressive. I am glad to have the opportunity of Lloyd George.) saying so in the presence of Mr. Deakin who will have a dominant voice, no doubt, in treating us fairly, or otherwise, when this Bill comes before the Australian Parliament.
(Mr.
Mr. DEAKIN May I point out again, that even if your statement were true, it does not in the least meet the point I was taking. Your complaint only relates to coastwise trade, in this case the carriage of the two suppo- sititious passengers who are to be picked up in the Commonwealth and afterwards landed within its borders. That is the only trade affected. Therefore that is coastwise trade. The qualification that needs to go in, with all your statement as to "Australian" trade, must be "Australian coastwise trade." The restrictions if imposed would not affect in the least your trade from any part of the world to Australia or from Australia to any other part of the world.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: It is not a verbal qualification.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: Is coastwise trade a necessary corollary to British Trade with Australia?
Mr. DEAKIN: No, that is quite separate.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I should have thought it was. I am told by these great liners that it will make a difference of scores of thousands of pounds, and they have to run things very near in competition with Germany and other countries now. It is a hard struggle. It will make a difference of scores of thousands of pounds to them if they are driven out of this trade.
Mr. DEAKIN: This coastwise trade?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think it is a purely verbal matter.
3
Mr. DEAKIN: But you have used the words "Australian trade" number of times, and when you come to look at the report presented, you will see, that to make your meaning quite clear, it is necessary to put in the word
coastwise."
L
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: No, I still say, what I object to, in so far as I have any right at all---or rather, what I criticise, is not that you should impose any obligation you like upon British or any other ships that are exclusively engaged in your coasting trade, but that purely because these great oversea liners pick up, may be, a ton of cargo or one or two passengers at one of ports, and deposit them at the next, all these very onerous obligations should be imposed on the whole ship.
your
Mr. DEAKIN: Whatever those obligations are, even accepting your statement, they are only imposed if you engage in coastwise trade. That is my point-the beginning and end of it. They are not imposed at all if you do not engage in coastwise trade.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I agree--if you do not carry these passengers, very well, you can go on. But that trade is precisely what enables the British
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liner to deal with Australia at all upon the terms upon which it is dealing. It could not do it if it were not that it gets a little trade like that on the coast an occasional passenger, or it may be a ton or two of cargo. Naturally passengers in Australia prefer going in a big liner of that sort to going in a small vessel engaged between one port and another. As the result of the Bill as it stands, which it is proposed to introduce into the Commonwealth Parliament, the British liner will be driven out of that trade, and will have to reconsider the whole of its position. When we are discussing the question of increased facilities and subsidies in order to improve transport, I would say that a far more effective thing than subsidies would be to treat these ships fairly in this matter. The proposed conditions are quite prohibitive.
Mr. DEAKIN: It might be; if we adopt such conditions. It is, of course, possible to push those conditions to a prohibitive point, but the Government Bill has not yet been drafted. The only Bill you have seen is a Bill prepared by a Commission, two of whose members were associated with my colleague, Sir William Lyne, at your Conference. The Government has yet to consider its own proposals in that regard. I am at a disadvantage in the unexpected absence of my colleague who would have taken up the whole of this question.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I wish he had been here.
Mr. DEAKIN He has the whole subject at his fingers' ends, not only because it is his department and not mine, but because he has been a member of the Imperial Commission here last month at which this question has been exhaustively discussed, while I have to go back to our local commission and what it proposed some time ago. Our Government has proposed nothing.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: Sir William Lyne's attitude was rather militant against our ships.
Mr. DEAKIN: No doubt Sir William Lyne would make the best case he could for.
Dr. JAMESON: I do not like it used as an argument against the whole question of preference, but I do hope Australia, in the person of Mr. Deakin, will consider what Mr. Lloyd George has said, because it is very interesting for the first time to have a preference asked for by the Imperial Government from a Colony on those lines.
Mr. DEAKIN It is very hard to resist that.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: As I put it, before you proceed with preference, I think you had better start with equality-and we have not had that yet.
Mr. DEAKIN: We first start with equality and hope for something better-preference.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: We will found preference on equality.
Mr. DEAKIN: Where I have the opportunity of putting the case to the Commonwealth Parliament in favour of a distinct discrimination on behalf of British shipping, I shall be able to mention how you, with tears in your voice, lead for preference.
Thirteenth Day.
8 May 1907.
COASTWISE TRADE.
(Mr.
Lloyd George.)