ATLANTIC SHIPPING MERGER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19750, 17 March 1934, Page 17

ATLANTIC SHIPPING MERGER

BILL PASSES HOUSE OF COMMONS LARGE SUBSIDY TO HELP CONSTRUCTION United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received March 16, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, March 16. The House of Commons passed the third reading of the North Atlantic Merger Bill, empowering the Treasury to advance £9,500,000 to the new company, formed under an agreement arrived at by the Cunard Company, the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company and the British Treasury, by which financial facilities would be provided for the completion of the new giant liner known as No. 534, on condition that the Cunard and' Oceanic Companies merged their North Atlantic interests.

Sir Stafford Cripps said that the Labour Party believed the measure to be one of the vicious ways in which capitalism wasted its resources. The Party only supported the Bill because it gave hope of employment.

Mr Neville Chamberlain (Chancellor of the Exchequer), stated to-day that he had an opportunity of reading press reports indicating that the International Mercantile Marine Company was contemplating action against the White Star merger. He added that the Board of the Oceanic Company had been authoritatively advised that they might legally implement their part of the merger schemes without the consent of the American Company. He wishes, however, to make it plain that if a contrary decision emerged as a result of legal action, the parties qould attain it by alternative methods which could not be open to attack, precisely the. result contemplated bv the merger agreement, and such methods would be within the scope of the North Atlantic Shipping Bill in its present form. In these circumstances, he was satisfied that no reason existed why the House of Commons should be deflected from its purpose by any action taken by the International Mercantile Marine Company.

OPPOSITION TO MERGER. AMERICAN INTERESTS AROUSED. In New York on Wednesday, Mr P. A. S. Franklin, president of the International Mercantile Marine Company, said that the company’s attorneys had been instructed to seek a court injunction to restrain the Cunard Company, the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, and others from proceeding with the merger of the Cunard and White Star Lines. Mr Franklin, who has just returned from Europe, alleged that the rights of stock-holders in the Oceanic Company had been violated. He also alleged that the new merger was nothing more or less than a British national line backed by the British Treasury to the extent of £50,000,000.