ping Administrative Committee for Australia, River Plate, and St. Lawrence. They will be affected indirectly, however, in the event the tramp lay-up compensation pool works out successfully. For a description of this pool see the section on the United Kingdom.

EL SALVADOR

Conferences dominate the trade of El Salvador. They have their headquarters abroad, however, and copies of their agreements are not available locally. Those in the trade to the United States are from the west coast only. The European conference is the Association of West India Trans-Atlantic Steamship Lines, domiciled at London. The United States conferences have headquarters in the United States. Tariffs are supplied to branch offices or agents in El Salvador, where interested parties may consult them. There is no fixed procedure with respect to adjustments. The conferences generally deal directly with shippers. The Chamber of Commerce and the Salvadoran Coffee Association are in the position to act for shippers, but are seldom called upon to do so.

The contract system providing lower rates in return for exclusive patronage is used in the case of shipments to the United States. The deferred-rebate system is employed in the case of shipments to other countries, principally those to Europe. Coffee is the main item of traffic and a claim for rebate form for use in connection therewith is furnished shippers by the Association of West India TransAtlantic Steamship Lines. This is similar to the form applicable in connection with rebates on shipments of coffee from Guatemala, with the exception that there are no railways parties thereto.

The Government does not exercise any authority over rates. For many years no tramp ships have engaged in the Salvadoran trade. Shipping conditions and conference agreements have rendered their operation impracticable.

SPAIN (AND CANARY ISLANDS)

Civil war in Spain and disruption of normal oversea services render valueless any review of present conditions. There is a feature of special interest, however, with respect to the relation between the prewar Government and shipping companies. That Government subsidized a number of important Spanish lines and required them to submit their tariffs to the Minister of Marine for approval, which the Minister granted only after a public hearing of interested shippers. Another Government measure was the issuance of a "Bando" or decree in Boletin Oficial No. 38 on March 26, 1937, by the Commanding General of the Canary Islands, establishing maximum. freight rates and conditions for obtaining contracts by shipping companies participating in the banana-carrying trade to all important European destinations, Spanish and foreign.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS

Liners dominate the trade out of the Straits Settlements, and tramps seldom obtain cargoes. The liners operate through conferences, with varying degrees of organization. For example, the Straits-Homeward Conference to Europe has a central booking of

fice for certain traffic and allocates shipments to member lines, whereas the Straits-Australia New Zealand Conference operates through a mere verbal agreement. In some trades the deferredrebate system is in effect, in others the contract and noncontract system.

Rates on rubber, the most important cargo, are discussed with manufacturers in the United States and with the London and New York Rubber Trade Associations. A decrease was allowed beginning April 1, 1938, as the result of representations by the rubber trade to the Conferences. The Associations explained their position to the rate committee of the Conferences by pointing out the lower prices of rubber.

Rates to the United States Atlantic and Gulf ports are adjusted to maintain a parity between the alternate routes via the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal. A similar situation exists in respect to rates via the Suez and the Cape of Good Hope routes. During 1937, the Mediterranean political situation resulted in an increase in the war risk insurance rates on traffic via Suez. Members of the conference using the Suez route equalized shipping costs by absorbing the difference in the insurance rates as between the Suez and the Cape of Good Hope routes.

The Government does not exercise any authority over rates.

SWEDEN

Conferences exist in most trades. Only one, however, maintains its headquarters in Sweden, the Swedish Baltic North Atlantic Freight Conference, which is interested in wood pulp. Neither this conference nor any of the others make their bylaws or agreements public in Sweden. Tariffs are filed in the offices of the lines where they may be consulted by interested persons.

Shippers negotiate individually with conferences on rate matters. Although there are numerous trade organizations in Sweden, they do not deal as a body with the conferences. The contract and deferred-rebate systems both are in use, but the latter is not extensive.

The Government does not exercise any authority over rates. This situation is anomalous inasmuch as the Government otherwise is interested, directly or indirectly, in many phases of business. For instance, it exercises some control over, or participates in, various forms of transportation-canals, highways, railroads, and air lines. Up to the present, however, shipping has been left to itself. The Swedish merchant marine has the tradition of private initiative and has developed independently of Government support or regulation, except as to labor and safety measures. It appears to have met satisfactorily the demands made upon it by the country's trade and industry.

Three private organizations, with headquarters abroad, influence or establish rates from Sweden or on Swedish tramps in various trades out of foreign countries. They are the Baltic and International Maritime Conference of Copenhagen; the tramp shipping administrative committee of London, and the International Tanker Owners' Association of London. Swedish shipowners are parties to these organizations, information regarding which appears under the

following section headings, respectively: Baltic and International Maritime Conference, United Kingdom, and International Tanker Pool.

Reports on the freight market, including the latest fixtures, are published in the weekly shipping journal, Svenska Flag.

The Government does not exercise any control over tramp rates.

SYRIA

With the exception of one or two old steamships devoted to transportation of Moslem pilgrims from Beyrouth to Jedda, on the Red Sea, the States of the Levant under French mandate have no liners of their own.

A few years ago, the local agents for foreign steamship companies, such as the French Messageries Maritimes, the Anglo-Egyptian Khaidivial Mail Line, and the Italian Lloyd Triestino, agreed to meet from time to time and fix rates for Port Said and Alexandria. Later, however, because of keen competition from smaller lines, especially Greek and Rumanian, the conference companies have not been able to abide by the rates and have been compelled to meet the nonconference competition.

The lines in Syria regard their tariffs or schedules of freight rates as confidential. The reason given is that they apply special rates to various shippers, according to the importance or frequency of their shipments.

The Government does not exercise any authority over rates. From time to time, however, the Service Economique intervenes, unofficially, with local steamship companies with the view to fixing special rates for oranges, lemons, or bananas, in order to encourage their export. Tramp steamers seldom, if ever, call at ports of Syria, as, in general, shipments are small. Products, such as grain, lumber, and ore, are not shipped in sufficiently large quantities to necessitate the use of a whole vessel. Tankers, however, load full cargoes of petroleum at Tripoli. These are destined mainly to France.

TURKEY

The conference system in Turkey is somewhat restricted in scope. In some trades membership is not complete and in others there is no organization at all. The absence of cooperative arrangements is especially notable in the services to the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Deferred rebates are resorted to by some conferences, contract and noncontract rates by others. Shippers act individually in rate negotiations, without group organization.

Although the Government does not exercise any authority over rates, it takes an active interest at times on behalf of shippers. The following is a case in point. The Turkish coastal service is owned and operated by the Government. Each fall the Turkish coastal shipping companies contract with European lines for the transportation of Turkish exports to foreign markets for the ensuing 12 months. During the shipping year, September 1936 to September 1937, the Turkish coastal shipping companies endeavored to renew, at the old rates, their contracts with the European lines. These lines held that rates had almost doubled during the year and insisted that the Turk

ish exports which their vessels carried would have to pay the going rates. The Turkish authorities refused to accept the new rates and made an arrangement with the Hellenic Steamship Line, a nonconference Greek line, to carry the trade. Whether this arrangement will prove temporary or permanent remains to be seen.

URUGUAY

Rates from Uruguay are fixed in Argentina, at Buenos Aires, the focal point for the Plata River.

The Government does not exercise any authority over rates.

VENEZUELA

Only fragmentary information is available regarding Venezuela. The shipping companies and conferences in the trade are domiciled abroad, mainly in Europe and in the United States. Two outstanding conferences are the Association of West India Trans-Atlantic Steam Ship Lines, London, and the United States Atlantic and GulfNetherlands West Indies and Venezuela Conference, New York. The first-mentioned fixed rates to Europe and the second, as indicated, to United States Atlantic and Gulf ports. It appears that deferred rebates are resorted to by the European lines and preferential contract rates on some commodities by the lines to the United States. The inference from the information on hand is that the Government does not exercise any authority over rates.

YUGOSLAVIA

The situation in Yugoslavia is without particular significance. It is pertinent to note, however, that tramp owners adhere to the minimum rate schemes of the tramp shipping administrative committee and the Baltic and International Maritime Conference. The Government does not exercise any authority over rates.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Liners and tramps.-Oversea transportation of goods today is performed by two somewhat distinct classes of carriers-liners and tramps. Broadly speaking, these carriers differ both in nature and in employment. Liners engage principally in the transportation of miscellaneous package and piece goods, although they carry, also, some bulk goods such as grain, cotton, rice, and lumber. Of special importance is their regularity of service. As common carriers, they operate between the same ports continuously and on definite schedules often fixed as much as a year in advance. Such vessels are generally of greater size and speed than tramps, and more and more are being equipped for particular trades, with refrigerated space and such other facilities as the nature of the traffic over their respective routes requires.

Tramps, in contrast, engage principally in the transportation of bulk goods, such as coal, grain, lumber, ore, and nitrate. They serve those merchants whose shipments, individually, move in vessel lots; and they operate between divers ports, under charter, to merchants for one or more voyages or, on time, in whichever trades at the moment provide the most remunerative employment. At times they are chartered by operators of liner services during seasons when traffic is unusually heavy or when other reasons render it necessary or advisable to supplement the liners. At such times they assume temporarily the character of liners as regards employment.

It

There is no precise cleavage between the tramp and the cargo liner. might be thought that a statutory distinction would be found in the British Shipping (Assistance) Act of 1935, which provided a subsidy for tramp shipping. It is said, however, that the draftsman gave the task up in despair. Certain eliminating words are contained in the act. By section 6 (1) "the vessels to which the act applies are ships which are neither fishing vessels nor constructed or adapted for the carriage of liquid cargoes in bulk, nor so constructed or adapted that the space insulated for the carriage of special cargoes is in excess either of 50,000 cubic feet or of 10 percent of the total space available for cargo." Parliament recognized that the same ship might be employed sometimes as a tramp and sometimes as a cargo liner, and, therefore, preferred to define a tramp voyage as follows: Section 6 (2) means a voyage in the course of which all the cargo carried is carried under charter party, but does not include any voyage during any part of which more than 12 passengers are carried.

In addition to the common (liner) and the contract (tramp) carriers which afford public conveyance, there are industrial carriers which afford either private conveyance or a combination of both private and public. Instances of these are the steel and fruit companies which carry their own products and act as common carriers.

Liner conferences.-For many years liner owners have employed a system of cooperation in the employment of their vessels and in a large measure have stabilized their rates. They have formed what are known as conferences. Briefly defined, a conference is an association of lines in a particular trade 1 essentially for the purpose of limiting the competition of member lines with one another and of meeting the competition of nonmember lines and tramps. For example, the North Atlantic United Kingdom Freight Conference is composed of lines operating from United States and Canadian North Atlantic ports to United Kingdom ports.

A shipping company may have lines in several trades and may be a member of several conferences, but its engagements in one are independent of those in another. The system of cooperation, therefore, is not for all purposes, but only for operations within a certain area or on a particular route. In some instances, however, where trade routes intersect or adjoin, the conferences af

Trade, in the shipping sense, refers to the water-borne commerce between given ports, or ranges of ports.