GIANT CUNARDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 9

GIANT CUNARDER.

QUESTION OF STATE AID. [ "MAY BECOME INEVITABLE." SUBSIDISED RIVALS CUT FAKES. ' i Statements regarding the suspension of work on tlie new liner No. 534, and the position of the company in relation to State-subsidised rivals, were made at the annual meeting of the Cunard Company in Liverpool. Sir Percy Bates, chairman, said: "Work on the ship is still suspended, and I am unable to say at what date it will be resumed. Long views are essential in the !Noith Atlantic, and though we have met with obstacles at the beginning of No. 534, we consider she is necessary to the continued welfare of the company. We will get work restarted as soon as we can see our financial way clear to her completion.^ Sir Percy mentioned, in connection with the company's unsuccessful approach to the Government for assistance in completing the ship, the different relations existing between some of the Cunarder's major competitors and their several Governments. Assistance obtained by some of Ifcpir competitors was not confined to furore shipbuilding, but also had direct relation to current operation. The Cunard Company had not felt justified in asking for assistance for operating, but he thought it right to draw attention both to the quality of the competition with which they had to live and to the fact that it would be intensified very shortly. Fare Cuts and Traffic. Referring to the decision by all North Atlantic lines to reduce fares by 20 per cent, Sir Percy said that a year ago the Cunard Company urged serious reductions, but was unable to secure the agreement of its conference colleagues, and was forced to compromise. At that time they believed such reductions would help to keep up the habit of travel from U.S.A. to Europe. With the fare cuts now decided upon it would appear that for the conference as a whole to earn the same revenue as last year a combined addition of approximately 21,500 firstclass, plus 30,000 cabin, plus 52,500 tourist and third-class passengers was necessary. It seemed difficult to believe such figures were at all likely to be realised in 1932. It was harder still to believe that the reduction would have been made if all lines were like the Cunard Company, both obliged and abl6 out of their own money to take the consequences of an error in judgment. "The Cunard Company is not yet forced to ask for Government help to run its existing ships in its transatlantic services, but it is obvious that if its main competitors have Treasuries as their bankers this will eventually become inevitable unless the Governments solve the problems of the background for which they, and they alone, are responsible, and so restore profitable intercourse." Sir Frederick C. Bowring, a former Lord Mayor of Liverpool and a member of the committee of Lloyd's Register of . Shipping, declared that the cessation of ] the building of the new liner was a "national disaster." Our prestige was involved. He hoped the Government would be induced to give such assistance as would enable not only 534 to be completed, but the second liner to be laid down within a reasonable time.