CUNARD LINE MEETING

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 April 1935, Page 2

CUNARD LINE MEETING

DOUBTFUL FINANCIAL OUTLOOK LONDON. April 24. There were remarkable passages in a speech of Sir Percy Bates at the Cunard Shipping Coy’s annual meeting. He said: To-day nobody can tell whether the balance sheet is sound or not. In one direction there is a presumption of unsoundness, as the subsidiary Cunard-White Star line lost heavily last year, while we have not provided for the year’s depreciation on the balance sheet figure of our shares. It is further certain that we can expect no return from the Atlantic in the current year, and unless the people of Britain and the United States can arrive at a common denominator for their intercourse, our future must be difficult. At present, both sides of the Atlantic give the idea of uncertainty. I think each side knows it is in a ’ditch, and both are beginning to think of climbing, but are deterred by fear of falling into another ditch. The Cunard cannot prosper until the world does. I doubt whether the old degree of prosperity is possible until the world again authorises an acknowledged medium of international - exchange. Universal war is waging today, the weapons not being navies and armies, but tariffs, quotas, and shifting currencies-. The only thing to stop it would be a return to a standard with some basis.