GOVERNMENT LINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 137, 13 June 1939, Page 7

GOVERNMENT LINE.

LAST SHIPS FOR SALE. CANADIAN ENTERPRISE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) MONTREAL, May 20. The CanatTlan Government Merchant Marine came to an end to-day with the sailing of Captain F. P. Barr, aboard the Cunarder Aurania. He had been on loan to the Manz Line in Montreal, to look after them, and with the ships gone, he went too. Captain Barr has been with the Montreal-Australia-New Zealand Line, whose firm absorbed the old C.G.M.M. The last three units, the Canadian Cruiser, Canadian Constructor and Canadian Challenger are still afloat, and still fly the Canadian flag, but they may be sold at any moment, if indeed they" are not already sold. The Canadian Cruiser is tied up idle in New York, the Canadian Constructor is inactive in Liverpool, [and the Canadian Challenger, now on the high seas, will be out of a job as soon as she discharges her cargo in London. There has been a lot of sentiment; (expended on the ships, and the sailors! [who sailed them, but they have gone the] I way of all good ships. In the atumn of i 1935, the Hon. Clarence D. Howe, Min-j ister of Transport, said. "They are near-| ing obsolescence." j

In the early 1920's there were morei than fifteen ships of the Canadian Gov-] ernment Merchant Marine on the high seas. They kept on dropping out, till] by 1935 the Canadian National Steam-; ship Line was operating 11 of them. 1 Captain Barr said he had spent aj happy two years in Canada. "What; impressed me most was th« hospitality lof the people," he said. <