More Liners For Britain.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 8

More Liners For Britain.

A London Letter

(Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, November 13. »J»HE GOVERNMENT have devised a novel plan which will really give an increased degree of employment to the country. This was embodied in the financial resolution, submitted to the House of Commons, relating to the Cunard Insurance Agreement Bill. Briefly, the situation is that the insurance for the great new £4,500,000 Cunard liners would not be available in its entirety from the usual underwriting houses, and therefore the company would not be able to proceed with them. The Government, however, stepped in and proposed that the Board of Trade assume the responsibility for any portion of the insurance that cannot be absorbed in the open insurance market. This is a very unusual procedure, but it has the approval of all parties. The first of the two ships will take up to three years to build, and will provide direct employment on the Clyde for at least 3000 men, and there will also be a large amount of indirect employment, most of the total outlay going in the form of wages. Incidentally, the State will save a considerable sum in unemployment benefit. The building of these great liners should also fulfil the task of regaining for this country the blue riband of the Atlantic. With splendid vessels such as the new Cunarders are evidently going to be, the British shipping world will be well equipped to take the fullest advantage of a revival of prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. The Conservative Leadership.

T OBBY and club discussions during the week have centred upon the fact that Mr Baldwin intends to lead his party in the general election. He has no intention of yielding to the minority of dissentients who wish him to resign his office to another, but are now ready to serve under him. One weakness of Mr Baldwin’s opponents lies in | the fact that they cannot indicate his probable successor. Many of those who would dispense with Mr Baldwin would not be prepared to serve under Sir Robert Horne. The man they favour most is Lord Hailsham, who was Lord Chancellor in the last Conservative administration, and is better known as Sir Douglas Hogg, but he is in the House of Lords and so not available for party leadership. So much is clear from the fact that at the recent Caxton Hall meeting, Lord Hailsham, who was defending Mr Baldwin, asked “ Who would you wish to replace him?” and in response to cries of “You!”’ remarked, with a smile, “ Well, ..of course, that is impossible.” The view of some people, however, is that the Prime Minister could be in the House of Lords if there were as Leader in the House of Commons a confidant who saw eye to eye with him. On certain occasions the Sovereign has omitted to send for a peer on the ground that the Premiership must be in the House of Commons in these democratic days. Times have changed since Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury held office, and when Lord Curzon’s claims were rejected, to his profound disappointment, there was general consent with the view that no peer Prime Minister will again be possible until we have reformed the House of Lords or an Act has been passed enabling a Cabinet Minister to speak in either House in explanation and defence of a Bill of which he is in charge.

University College School. This month University College School will celebrate its centenary, and since its alumni are scattered all over the world the occasion is one of wide interest. In the hundred years since the school was founded—three years after the founding of the University College—many “ Old Gowers ” —a name derived from Gower Street, the school’s first home—have brought lustre to its annals. Mr Joseph Chamber- ■ lain was there in 1850, | Canon Ainger and Mr ! Speaker Gully a few years earlier. Lord Leighton belonged to the early forties. Lord Morley was after Mr Chamberlain’s time, and since his day the boys at the school included Sir Hamo Thornycroft, Lord Reading, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Herbert Samuel. Other names show that many “ Old Gowers ” have achieved the highest positions in the church, in the law and in commercial life. One became a Lord Mayor of London thirty years ago; another will be Lord Mayor next year. The unusual feature of the history of the University College is that it began in a small way, and never had endowments, and until after the war had never received any financial help either from the State or the county. Living from hand to mouth, and even falling into debt, it still prospered as an educational institution, and since removal from Gower Street to Frognal has been splendidly modernised. To celebrate the centenary it is proposed to raise an endowment fund of £50,000. None of this will be applied to the liquidation of debt. The money is to be used entirely for the establishment of scholarships and to provide an income to be held available in case of temporary stress. Fewer Sailing Ships. TMIE annual report of the British Sailing Ship Owners’ Association states that the twelve months ended September, 1930, have proved to be the worst in the shipping depression, which has now lasted for the unprecedented period of nearly ten years. Shipping freights, as measured by the Chamber of Shipping index number of freights for steam shipping engaged in foreign cargo trades, fell almost without a break from September, 1929, to May, 1930. The usual autumn recovery was totally absent in 1929, and so far has been only slight in 1930. There are no separate records available showing the course of sailing ship freights, or of the amount of sailing ship tonnage idle. When the last report of the association was issued in September, 1929, the committee estimated that the amount of such British tonnage (including vessels fitted with auxiliary power) which was then unemployed was from sto 10 per cent. It is thought that the figure is much about the same to-day. During the period under review, however, the employment of sailing ship tonnage has been more precarious. It is the experience of the committee that sailing ship freights, which were at a low level in 1929, have been worse in 1930. The returns published by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen record that 83 sailing ships of gross tons were added to the United Kingdom Register during the twelve months July, 1929, to June, 1930, including 55 new vessels with a total gross tonnage of 5417, built during 1929 and 1930. Of these vessels 47 were built in the United Kingdom. The number of sailing vessels added to the Register is, however, more than offset by the number removed from it. The returns show that the number removed was 246, of 23,607 gross tons.