NEW ZEALAND AND THE CLYDE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND AND THE CLYDE

Resumption of the building of the great Cunard liner on the Clyde is a matter of some importance to New Zealand. When work was stopped on the vessel in December last the fact was properly regarded as a national misfortune, for it is no secret that the new ship was being built to retain the prestige of British shipping in the Western Ocean trade —a prestige that is being undermined by heavily-subsidised foreign competition. For 1931 the vessels under construction in British and Irish yards was but 549,213 tons, compared with 1,568,659 tons in 1930 and 1,652,224 in 1929; moreover, nqt only shipbuilding but the; shipping industry in 1931 suffered from what Lloyd's Register report described' as "the most severe depression within living memory." And on top of this, and just before Christmas, came the staggering blow of suspension of construction of the Cunard liner.

Here was a work which would cost over four and a half millions sterling and upon which, directly and indirectly, thousands of men were employed. Suddenly all work was stopped and Glasgow was plunged in gloom, as .well it might be. So recently as 26th January last Glasgow accorded an official welcome to the s.s. Middlesex from New Zealand with produce shipped direct to the Clyde, and the Lord Provost, Sir Thomas Kelly, formally opened the main hatch of the ship and superintended the discharge of the first sling of New Zealand cargo. The population of Glasgow and its surroundings is as large as that of the whole of New Zealand^—Glasgow itself numbering over a million. The purchasing ability of this great market would naturally be reduced by tie stoppage of work on the Cunarder, but now that that work is, to be resumed the prospects.of New Zealand benefiting by increased sales of its produce in that market should materially improves and Glasgow is only too anxious to trade directly with the Dominion. ■