The Earl of Inchcape, a past President of the General Council of British Shipping and chairman of P. & O., recently stated:

“a principle which we [British shipowners] consider to be of fundamental importance— that commercial criteria alone should affect the ability of lines to carry cargoes. In our view, in an ideal world, only competition in a free market can provide the best and cheapest service for our customers”.1

The experience of the situation a century ago, of course, was that unbridled competition can be positively detrimental to the interests of shippers and shipowners alike. This led to the development of the liner conference system, whereby certain shipowners combined into associations whose purpose and effects were clearly to restrict—or, perhaps, to regulate—competition between shipowners in the trades concerned, but simultaneously to provide a more stable and reliable service for shippers. Lord Cayzer, another past President of the General Council of British Shipping (when it was called the Chamber of Shipping), said:

“To say that it was a monopoly I think is quite untrue because there were always those fighting on the perimeter outside the conference, and from time to time they fought their way in, and so conferences were continually kept on their toes and had to be careful not to outprice themselves”.2

Yet, it would be difficult to deny that the conference system does have at least a monopolistic flavour to it. Nonetheless, despite the antagonism which the word “monopoly” commonly provokes, the conference system can be regarded as not only acceptable but positively desirable if, on balance, its benefits outweigh its disadvantages.

Initially, therefore, it might seem somewhat paradoxical that British shipowners, who have clearly accepted the merits of the semi-monopolistic conference system, should have been so hostile to the competition-restricting provisions contained in the recent Merchant Shipping (Liner Conferences) Bill. It may appear even more unexpected that they have nevertheless not opposed the Bill and that the measure was introduced by a Government whose political philosophy has been largely against restrictive regulations on competition, as exemplified by its nailing its flag to the mast of deregulation in the field of civil aviation. Not surprisingly, the picture is not as