DEFERRED BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 14

DEFERRED BUILDING

TRANS-PACIFIC LINE

HiGH COST OF TONNAGE

"Evening Post," June 7.

. Delay in placing two new de luxe passenger ships in the Canadian Australasian Line's Pacific service is attributable to the present high costs of shipbuilding. Plans have already been prepared for these new vessels, but their building is still deferred. Costs of new tonnage at the present time are abnormally high as one result of the British Government's re-armament programme. The high cost of passenger ships was estimated recently by Mr. Robertson F. Gibbs, a recognised authority, as fully 20 per cent, on pre-arma-ment rates. Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Company, speaking : recently at the meeting of shareholders held in Liverpool, stressed the difficulties of British ship owners in the I face of subsidised foreign shipping. The British Government's building subsidy, j he said, could apply to vessels of the company's associated lines, but it appeared to be insufficient in amount to warrant building a ship before she was realy needed for service. Their company was in no, way. subsidised. If they had borrowed money from the Government that money had to be paid back. A VULNERABLE INDUSTRY. Mr. Philip E. Haldin, chairman of the Lamport and Holt Line, in a recent address to shareholders, outlined the : strong public interest now taken \n British shipping. "I doubt if there j are any of our great industries today j that they study more closely and care | for more anxiously than that of our Merchant Navy—the great bulwark of safety of this nal:on." said Mr. Haldin. "Not a day passes but you can read in the columns of the Press of the results of fact-finding committees, articles on shipping policy, demands for shipping subsidies, and protection against foreign subsidised competition, all showing our people the dangerous and vulnerable condition into which this super-important industry has gradually drifted, and now that dread complaint of anaemia has attacked our shipbuilding industry- It seems almost impossible to imagine that the industry that created the wooden walls of England can ever fail to give us these { steel vessels which bring to us our daily bread in -every sense of the word."

TONNAGE IN TIME OF WAR,

Sir Vernon Thomson, chairman of the King Line, in his speech to shareholders in that comuany, stated that "for some time the directors have been considering the acquisition of new tonnage but hitherto have not felt justified in contracting at the present ruling prices, as it was impossible at current rates of freight to employ vessels profitably on such a capital value. "To meet the present position resulting from ship owners being unable to trade vessels remuneratively at today's building costs, his Majesty's Government is taking steps to bridge the difference to some extent. Although so far full details are not available, the broad lines indicate that this will have the desired effect of modernising the Mercantile Marine and increasing tonnage supplies in case of war." That British yards are busy on Government work is indicated by the Westminster Bank, which remarked in :1s April review of industry that orders for a large number of naval vessels had been given out, and adds: "Nearly all yards participated in the revived demand and it seems hardly too much to say that the outlook for the industry has undergone a complete transformation." The fact was also mentioned that within a fortnight of the announcement of the British Government's plan of assistance to the Mercantile Marine, more than thirty vessels, including colliers were ordered by British owners, in the United Kingdom.