WILL RUN AT LOSS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 89, 15 April 1935, Page 8

WILL RUN AT LOSS

FRANCE'S GIANT LINER

■M. Cangardel, managing director' of the French Line, admitted recently that State help would be indispensable, and had;been promised, in connection with the 79,000-ton liner Normandie, which is to make her maiden voyage this spring. But he considered that the building of the vessel was justified, reports tho "Daily Telegraph." He said receipts of tho liner, estimated at more than £50,000 per voyage, would not do. more than coyer the running expenses. The amortisation of, the cost of tho vessel, whose life could not excecd'2o years, and her share of the general expenses, could not" be met by the company.

But only vessels of such huge tonnage could brave the roll of the heavy seas of the Atlantic without delay, discomfort, or danger for the passengers. Moreover, such a vessel was the most effective form of propaganda that Franco could undertakel in America.

Further, thousands of workmen bad found employment iv its construction, the lives of hundreds of families of its crew would bo secured, and immense sums which wou.ld otherwise Lave gone to ioroigii;ship owners would remain in French pocl/ets. M. Cangardel said measures had been taken which h;ul entirely eliminated all »l«nj;cr of fire in the ship. There would be on board professional. firemen 'who were being trained with the Paris brigade. *