“TIMBERS SHIVERED”

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1928, Page 7

“TIMBERS SHIVERED”

PRINCE AS MARINE MASTER GREAT RECEPTION (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) (By Cable—Press Assn—Copyright.) LONDON, February 24. The intense popularity of the Prince of Wales’ appointment as Master of the Merchant Navy was demonstrated when 750 guests at the Chamber of Shipping banquet stood and deafeningly cheered him before he was able to proceed with the toast of “The Shipping Industry.” Sir William Seager (President of the Chamber) occupied the chair and ■among those present were Mr Bridgeman, Sir Austen Chamberlain, Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister, Admiral Halsey, Mr F. G. Kelleway, Lord Kylsant, and the Lord Mayor. The singing of sea chanties enlivened the programme. The Prince assured his hearers that the King was delighted with the manner in which all sides had received the compliment to the merchant navy. The Prince, paid a tribute to the honour accorded, and facetiously quoted Marco Polo’s dictum that “persons frequenting the sea must be people of desperate fortunes, whose testimony in court ought not to be admitted.” However, maritime customs had changed since then. The Prince emphasised the fascination that ships possessed for him, but he declined to make a long statement he had prepared regarding the shipping industry, because in the presence of so many experts, he was “taken flat aback, and his timbers shivered” to such an extent that he felt the audience would lot him off a discussion on the evolution of ships, front the coracle to the oil-driven liner. Though 7,759,000 tons 'of shipping was destroyed and 15,000 ,lives lost during the war, the shipping industry was holding on, and despite the past seven years’ depression, British shipyards were building fifty per cent of the tonnage under construction. In 1927 Britain had supremacy by 15,000 tons, in big and the biggest ships. The Prince concluded “May the shipping industry, however, crowded be the fairway, steer into the harbour of active permanent prosperity.” Sir William Seager, responding, testified to the Services’ pride in the Prince’s appointment and he was not only a Royal Ambassador, but a Royal commercial attache, visiting the Dominions and foreign countries to expand Empire commerce. In the service to his country, he had been living up to the reputation of his great predecessors, particularly the Black Prince, who adopted the motto . “I serve,” on the field of Crecy. “The shipping industry,” Sir William Seager continued, “will be placed in the forefront of national assets. We control twenty-two million tons, compared with twenty million tons in 1913. The British shipowners’ treatment of sailors is an example to all countries.” After appealing to British youth to join the mercantile marine, Sir William Seager, urged his hearers to take in conjunction with His Majesty’s call of 1901 “Wake up England.” Earl Haig’s appeal, the day before he died, namely “Stand up for England.’'

“ Lord Kylsant, proposing the Ministry, said shipping would be greatly stimulated if the Government reduced National expenditure and related local rates.

Sir Austen Chamberlain responding, humorously observed that he was astonished that the health of a Government so little deserving of confidence should be drunk at all. This probably was not due to gratitude, but to hopes for the future. The War had taught all peoples that no part of the world could suffer without injuring all. Only international goodwill could promote International prosperity. The spirit animating the merchant marine' would secure for the Empire its share of whatever prosperity attended it.