GROWING PART

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1941, Page 8

GROWING PART

DOMINION YARDS

CARRIAGE OF TROOPS

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received February 5, 1 p.m.)

RUGBY, February 4,

Mr. Cross said that Canada, which before the war had about 1,250,000 tons on its shipping register, has launched vessels from yards at Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. A large number of merchant ships was now on the stocks and it was announced recently that Canada is to build 18 large merchant vessels for the British Government. There were some forty shipbuilding and repairing establishments in the Dominion, and even before the war about 4000 permanent workers were employed. In 1938 repair work was done to a value of over £3,000,000.

Although South Africa has not a shipbuilding industry large-scale repairs can be carried out at Durban, where there are well-equipped repair yards and a dry dock. AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRY. Australia had built only a small number of vessels before the war, but has since greatly enlarged its ship-, building capacity. A yard is to be established at Whyalla, South Australia, to build merchant ships up to 12,000 tons, and Mr. Hughes, Minister of the Navy, had declared that shipbuilding must become one of the great national industries of Australia. Orders amounting to £250,000 for engines and machinery had been placed in Queensland.

Speaking of the strain on British shipping, Mr. Gross said: "I should like to tell you of the extraordinary variety of troop movements which has been carried out by the Merchant Navy. We have carried Canadian troops from Canada to this country, to Iceland, and to the West Indies; Newfoundlanders to this country for the Army and Navy and for log cutting; Australians and New Zealanders to the Middle East and to Britain; South Africans to East Africa and Egypt; and Indians to East Africa, Egypt, and Britain. In addition we have moved Gold Coast, Nigerian, Palestine, and Cypriot troops. We have carried troops from this country to such a variety of places that I will not detail them to you, for they cover the world from Bermuda to Singapore and from Iceland to Hong Kong."