SHIPS AND THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 15

SHIPS AND THE SEA

(By "Spunyarn.") YEAR OF PROGRESS AND RECOVERY

NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING FORGES AHEAD

The year just past has been a remarkable one for New Zealand shipping in many respects. It has been a year of rapid progress; a period ol recovery, which, though still slow, is yet proceeding and gathering impetus as it continues on its way. In its last month the dying year saw the report of the committee set up to consider the Pacific -shipping position, a legacy of which the New Year should not be slow to take advantage. The Mercantile Marine, which has been for centuries the cornerstone of British greatness, and which was indeed its .ultimate creator, is the index of British prosperity as well as the life-blood of the people. During the past twenty years British supremacy in the sea-carrying trade of the world has been threatened in turn by many competitors; for a time it appeared that their challenges would bo successful, that the British flag would no longer be seen in the ports where before the war it used to be the only one, that our shipping, under the menace of foreign subsidised competition, would shrink to an insubstantial shadow -of its former self; but the past year gave no more confirmation that would strengthen this belief. Rather did it give promise in its final twilight that Britain's trade would once more dominate the seas, and that

the Mercantile Marine, whose value as a link of Empire has been so well appreciated since 1766, would recover from the attacks of depression and subsidised competition. NOTABLE ADDITIONS TO FLEETS. The past year, then, has indeed been a notable one in New Zealand history, as it has been in that of the Empire. In the mind of the public there will probably remain one incident above all others in the year: the arrival of the new trans-Tasman liner Awatea at Wellington on September 3, typifying as it did the progress made in shipbuilding in the past fifty years, and illustrating in an unmistakable manner the effects of a farsighted policy on the part of her owners. She typified, too, the birth of a new idea, a new hope and courage, and few can have failed to be imi pressed with the magnitude of the advance made by the building of the : Awatea in the trans-Tasman trade. Together with the Awatea, the Union ! Steam Ship Company built for the ' New Zealand trade the Matua, which is at present in the Islands service, a trade for which she was specially designed and to which she is admirably suited, and the Kauri, which is in the coastal trade. The Osaka Shosen Kaisha's Canberra Mam, one of three new Japanese ships specially built for the Australian and New Zealand trade, ; paid its first visit to Wellington in September. The Port Line's Port r Jackson, which was launched in Nov- , ember from the yards of Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson, and the Blue ' Star Line's Sydney Star, which visited Port Chalmers on her maiden voyage in May, are notable additions to the cargo vessels that call at Wellington, and illustrate the forward policy ruling in England. The Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company's Arawa is due on the coast early in February,' and she will be a worthy successor to the lonic, a ship well known to thousands of New Zealanders. The year saw, too, the establishing ' of a new record in the port: the new ' Orient liner Orion, 23,000 tons, was the largest passenger ship that has yet ' visited Wellington. New ships, moreover, have meant ' greater speed. The new Blue Star . liners and the Shaw, Savill vessels • Wairangi and Waiwera have been making faster times Home this year, and ■ the advent of the Awatea, which ' has created a record for the trans-Tasman t trip of 2 days 11 hours 13 minutes, • brought Sydney and Wellington appreciably closer together. The year, however, has not been •'without its tragedies, or at least its mishaps. The incidents of the Ranga- - tira and the Wahine spring to mind ] at once; there was the Abel Tasman disaster at Greymouth, far more seri- . ous in its ultimate result; and in the past few days the overturning of the scow Bangi in the Hauraki Gulf has added one more tragedy to the total of,those. attributable to the sea in a • little under a year.

BRIGHT PROSPECTS

N.Z. ATHLETIC UNION

any, suitable skilled men are, in fact, unemployed." BUSY YEAR AHEAD. ____ The dockyards on the Clyde face"a busy year in 1937. More than 100 vessels ordered in 1936 are to be launched on the river. Including "No. 552," which will not be launched until 1938, the tonnage still to be completed is in the region of half a million tons, and the likelihood is that the 1937 output will be even greater than that in 1536. The construction of the second Cunard-White Star giant will provide work for several thousand workmen from early in the New Year until the spring of 1940. It is estimated that about 1000 men are employed on the vessel already, but that number will be gradually augmented as work progresses. The Port Glasgow and Greenock district had the greatest output on the river during the past year, and the indications are that it will repeat its dominance in 1937. The Greenock Dockyard Co., which suffered more than many of the other yards during the prolonged depression period, is now on the crest of the wave, and begins the year with nine vessels, aggregating 64,800 tons, on hand. Six of the orders were announced simultane-

ously in the month of October, and represented one of the most valuable series of contracts placed on the Clyde for a long time. About £1,000,000 was involved. All of the vessels are cargo motorships for the Clan Line. Over thirty new vessels, most of them of fair dimensions, will take shape in the Glasgow yards during 1937, the new work being fairly evenly distributed amongst the firms on the north and south sides of the river. The new machinery required for the battleship H.M.S. Elizabeth, one of the "plums" of the Admiralty's reconditioning and replacement programme, is to be made at Govan. A Southampton class cruiser has still to be launched from the Govan yard, as well as H.M.S. Maori and Ghurka (destroyers) and two passenger and cargo motor-ships, each of 11,000 tons, for the Anchor Line. Two Tribal class destroyers and the machinery for a sloop-mine-sweeper are taking shape at Port Glasgow for the Admiralty. The Linthouse yard has also secured the contract for the construction of a passenger liner of about 15,000 tons gross from the P. and O. .Steam Navigation Co. This vessel will be larger than the Corfu and the Carthage, produced by the same firm some years ago. A cargo vessel for the Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand, and a 6000-ton cargo motor-ship for the New Zealand Shipping Co. are also being constructed. Twenty-one firms start 1937 with a greater volume of work to complete than the river has possessed at any time since 1930.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WAIPUKURAU, January 22. The conference of the New Zealand Athletic, Cycling, and Axemen's Union was held at Waipukurau today, Mr. H. H. Fraser, Dominion president, presiding. Mr. J. W. Watkins, president of the Hawke's Bay centre, welcomed the visiting delegates. The conference passed a resolution of sympathy with the relatives of the late Messrs. J. Wilson (West Coast) and R. Campbell (Wellington), former conference delegates. A special welcome was extended to the Northern Athletic Union delegates, who were present for the first time for 21 years. The balance-sheet showed a credit of £163. The president said the union had passed successfully through the slump and could look forward confidently to the future, as athletics were coming into their own again in New Zealand.