GOVERNMENT AID

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1939, Page 9

GOVERNMENT AID

INCREASING TONNAGE

EXCEPTIONAL MEASURES

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, March 28.

In announcing in the House of Commons measures intended to give more direct and immediate encouragement to British ship-building, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley) said that to give more confidence to the shipowner it was proposed to provide funds from which the owners of tramps and cargo linersother than refrigerated or passenger vessels—ordered in the next few months from United Kingdom shipbuilders would receive a grant of an appropriate amount in each of the next five years, with the exception of any year in which earnings were such as to make the grant unnecessary. The amount .to be used for these grants would not exceed £500,000 a year during the five-year period.

The Government proposed also to ask Parliament to make available £10,000,000 for loans to shipowners over a period of two years on favourable terms for the purpose of building in Britain tramps and cargo linersother than refrigerated vessels and passenger vessels —including tramps and cargo liners intended for the coasting trade.

The Government had called for further exceptional measures to increase the amount of tonnage under the British flag and it was accordingly proposed to ask Parliament to make a sum of £2,000,000 available for the purchase of suitable vessels on the United Kingdom register which, though still capable of service, would otherwise be sold to foreign owners or for breaking up. The proposals outlined by Mr. Stanley do not include any assistance for tankers. In the case of each form of assistance the expectation of the Government is expressed that the interests concerned will take steps during the currency of the subsidy to improve their position so that future assistance will not be necesary. In the case of the tramp subsidy, the industry is expected to do its utmost to promote international measures to safeguard freight rates.