SHORTER-TERM PLAN

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 250, 21 July 1942, Page 5

SHORTER-TERM PLAN

Speed Of Shipbuilding In United States (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, July 19. The Maritime Commission announced the curtailment of all further construction of shipbuilding plant throughout the country because the available steel is needed for Shipbuilding itself in the existing plants. Rear-A’dmiral Vickery, vice-chairman of the commission, revealed that the rate of shipbuilding is ahead of the 1942 schedule by 2,000,000 tons. The new shipbuilding was already outstripping the American losses of merchantmen, he added, and said: “I am confident we will turn out enough vessels next year to counteract all the inroads made by submarines against the shipping of the United Nations’ shipping. If the materials are available it will be possible to produce 25,000,000 tons of shipping in 1943—more than the total British merchant fleet before the war.” The American United Fruit Company, the world’s largest farming organization, has announced a large-scale project for developing in Central America crude rubber and other typical Far Eastern tropical products, including hemp, quinine and teakwood. The company stated that experiments which have been carried on for several years past have been so promising that production will be introduced immediately in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, but important rubber deliveries from these sources cannot be expected in the near future.