"SECOND TO NONE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 194, 18 August 1931, Page 10

"SECOND TO NONE."

BRITISH SHIPPING TO-I>AY.

NEW COMPETITION NOT FEARED.

Foreign. maritime competition with New Zealand ships trading between British possessions in the -Pacific was referred to by several speakers at the annual reunion of the New Zealand Company .of Master Mariners in Wellington. Mr. W. P. Endean, M.P., said that if we allowed our - merchant ships to be swept away by unfair competition of heavily, subsidised foreign shipping it would spell ruin to the Empire. Something should be done in co-operation with Australia and Canada and other parts of the Empire to see that this did not happen. Captain J. W. Keane said the United States would have a mercantile marine just as long as the money lasted, and there were signs that it would not last for ever. There was no need for panic. The British Mercantile Marine had always met and mastered competition, and it would continue to do so. There was no need to fear the competition of United States ships. The recent merger with C.P.R, meant that, backed by the immense resources of this powerful company, the Dominion's shipping services .on the Pacific would continue to hold their own.

Captain W. Stuart said that British shipping to-day was second to none. The instant success of the luxury liner Empress of Britain showed that Britain was second to none in naval architecture. The Cunard Line had accepted the challenge of foreign shipping, and at a cost of £6,000,000 was building a 70,000-ton liner, to be named Princess Elizabeth, to wrest back the Blue Riband of the Atlantic. That typified the spirit of the British Merchant Marine.