MERCANTILE MARINE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1927, Page 4

MERCANTILE MARINE

SIR L. HALSEY'S' TRIBUTE

(From Our Own Corraspondent.)

LONDON, 15th December.

Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey was one of the principal guests at the Lyceum Club, Piccadilly, on the occasion of a mercan tile marine dinner. Miss Agnea Gib bons presided.

Proposing "The Merchant Service," Sir Lionel Halsey said the Prince of Wales recently had referred, to the mercantile marine as a" great industry. That theme might be enlarged Upon. The mercantile marine had been responsible for the very existence of the country, which had always depended upon it since the earliest days of our his tory. The merchant service bad had its ups and downs, but it was significant that when it was down the trade of the country had been down too.

During the war the merchant service supplied the Navy with a great reserve of man power. Those not taken for the Navy had simply "carried on," and brought to us the essential raw materials to be converted into war munitions. The merchant service would never be forgotten by our late enemies, and would not be ignored by any enemies of the future.'

Sir Frederick Lewis and Sir Burton Chadwick, M.P. (deputy-master of the Company of Master Mariners), replied.. Tho latter said that the Lyceum Club was the only body in existence to give ft dinner, year after year, in honour of the merchant service. Unlike all the other services, the merchant service, the mother- of them all, had had no one to speak for.them on a level with other services and other professions. The Company of Master Mariners would endeavour to fill that ■ position for the mercantile marine.

85, Fleet street.