COSTLY DELAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 18, 22 January 1937, Page 9

COSTLY DELAYS

MARITIME STRIKE

HOPES FOR SETTLEMENT

NEW YORK, January 20,

Banks, business houses, export firms, and shipping lines are making extraordinary efforts to overcome the handicap of the maritime strike in conveying goods and mail east and west over the Pacific between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

The Associated Press learns that the inactivity of the Matson Line on the Pacific coast is causing the redirecting of most of the freight and mails to Vancouver, where only the Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Line is left to handle an unprecedented volume with infrequent sailings. The Cunard Line states that considerable freight usually shipped via the Pacific is coming east. This, with the normal flow from eastern ports, is going principally to the Norton Lilly and the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, and some little is being diverted to Montreal for the Australian and New Zealand Line. The Cunard Company intimates that it knows of cases of orders for machinery, automobiles, and general cargo normally placed by Australian and New Zealand business houses in the United States that are now being diverted to Canadian or European manufacturers for fear of costly delays. The east coast situation is less complicated than the west because the Roosevelt Line is the only principal American group here, and three out of four vessels leaving for Australia and New Zealand are British. A general belief prevails in the west that the strike will shortly be settled. The Matson Line is tentatively booking the Monterey for sailing on February 2.