GERMANY’S SHIPPING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 18, 22 January 1935, Page 7

GERMANY’S SHIPPING

BID FOR TRADE ROUTES. TWO NEW STEAMSHIPS. A signal for renewed activity in the German shipping industry was given by Herr Hitler’s appearance on IDecem(ber 14 at tihe launching at Bremen of ft new North German Lloyd liner the ■Scharnhorst. for the company’s Ear ■Eastern service. The Scharnhorst is a vessel of 18,000 tons and the first German ship to be driven by electricity. She will carry 296 passengers, a crew of 270, ■and with a speed of 21 knots will travel ■between Genoa and Shanghai in 23 ■days. A sister ship, the Gneisenau, will be launched early in the new year. Like the Scharnhor&t, she takes her name from a German battleship sunk at the Falklands battle in 1914.

With the Chancellor at the launching were General von Blomberg, ' Reichswehr Minister, Baron Eltz von Rubenach, Minister of Communications, and Dr. Schacht, President of the Reichs•bank. Baron EJtz von Rubenach stated •that, in addition to the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, two more ships were to be built for the same service, “as the heralds of a union with the land of the iFar East wthose future is so rich in [promise. ’ ’ The Minister said that better days were dawning. In the struggle which -Germany was waging against economic depression shipping links with the outside world were indispensable. “Germany as no intention of giving place 'in peaceful competition with other nations,” he said.

Herr Schwamm, ’director of the North German Lloyd, described the launching of the Scharnhorst as the prelude to new life in German shipping. “We must go further on tihe road which the Leader has shown us,” he said. “Quality alone is decisive today. Our crews are surpassed by those of no other seafaring nation. “Subsidies,” declared Herr Schwamim, “are a cure for the shipping industry. They imply still smaller freights and still greater losses, unprofitable lines and costly prestige services. The German shipping industry therefore, rejects all thoughts of a subsidy. It does not fit in with National-Social-ist conceptions. The industry can only recover its health by international cooperation. Germany must have a great mercantile marine.’