SHIPPING WAR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 82, 31 December 1928, Page 10

SHIPPING WAR

BETWEEN BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES FOR SOUTH AMERICAN TRADE HINT OF POSSIBLE COURT ACTION (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian Press Assn.-United Service.) New York, December 28. What is regarded in some quarters as tantamount to a shipping war between Britain and the United States for the South American trade took a more serious turn to-day with the publication by the Cunard Line of a statement giving a hint of a possible Court action against the United States Shipping Board. The statement was in the form of a letter to Mr. T.. O'Connor, the chairman of the Shipping Board, and was from Mr. Robert Blake, associate director of the Cunard Line, and charges the board with a violation of the United Stages Federal statute. The Cunard Company resented the board’s action in the placing of the steamship President Roosevelt at the disposal of the Ward Lines after the Cunard Company had announced that the Cunard steamer Caronia would be used for the Havana service. The Caronia started her initial voyage on the new run with a full passenger list on December 27. The President Roosevelt will start her first Havana trip on January 5, which coincides with the date of the Caronia’s second voyage. * Mr. O’Connor stated that the board was merely following its customary policy of aiding American merchant marine companies, but the Cunard statement charged the board with a violation of section 14 of the shipping Act, 1920, which bars the use of a “fighting ship,” which it defines as follows “The term fighting ship in this Act means a vessel used in a particular trade by a carrier or group of carriers for the purpose of excluding, preventing, or reducing competition by driving. another carrier out of the said trade.” The statement of the Cunard director concludes: “Our proper course in such circumstances as now confront us would naturally be to refer the matter to your board, but as the ship involved is the board’s vessel and is put into trade on the terms above described by the board, we may find it necessary, if we are damaged to any appreciable extent, to appeal to the Courts for relief.”