“CRUISES TO NOWHERE”

Evening Star, Issue 20996, 9 January 1932, Page 4

“CRUISES TO NOWHERE”

[From Our Correspondent] SAN FRANCISCO, December 9. New Zealanders already have heard of the innovation by British steamship companies operating off the Atjantic seaboard of the United States introducing ‘“cruises to nowhere,” cruises which have won them extraordinary patronage from the American thirsty public, irking under the restrictions of the Prohibition laws of Uncle Sam. Week-end cruises of this nature, which have met with a degree of popularity in the last; year, especially out of Now York, were described as violations of the nation’s coastwise laws when undertaken by foreign shipowners, by Mr I. V. O’Connor, chairman of the United States Shipping Board, in an address in Trampa, Florida, when he spoke before the Propeller Club. “ We see no reason.” he said, “ why foreign ships shoald be permitted to make our ports the base of operations for their so-called ‘ voyages to nowhere ’ —voyages which begin and terminate at some port of the United States without touching at a foreign port. “This is clearly a violation of the spirit, if not the actual letter, of our coastwise laws, to say nothing of our Prohibition laws. Our information is is that ‘ trips t onowhere ’ have become a source of considerable revenue to the foreign shipowners who engage in them. “ The fact that this revenue comes from the pockets of American citizens, and that it helps _ to support foreign shipping ventures, is not the only argument that can be used against the practice. “ To my way of thinking the chief argument against it is that it is a form of poaching on our protected domestic trade ,and, if permitted to continue, it may enable the foreign shipowners to make still further inroads in a field that has been reserved for our own people. “ The Shipping Board has therefore recommended to Congress that appropriate legislation be passed making it unlawful for ships of foreign registry to engage in these questionable operations.”