MASTER OF MERCHANT NAVY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 127, 27 February 1928, Page 9

MASTER OF MERCHANT NAVY

POPULARITY OF PRINCE’S APPOINTMENT ENTHUSIASM AT SHIPPING BANQUET BRITAIN’S TONNAGE SUPREMACY BY Telegraph.—Press association. Copyright. London, February 24. Tile 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 lie was able to proceed with tlie toast “Tile Shipping Industry.” Sir'William Seager, president of the Chamber, occupied the chair, and among those present were Mr. W. C. Bridgeman, Sir Austen Chamberlain, Sir Phillip Cunliffe-Lister, Admiral Halsey, Mr. F G. Kelleway, Lord Kylsant, and the Lord Mayor.

The singing of sea chanties enlivened tlie programme. Tile Prince assured his hearers that tlie 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.

Tlie Prince emphasised the fascination which 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 his audience would let him off a discussion on the evolution of ships from the coracle to the oil-driven liner. Though seven and three-quarter million tons of shipping was destroyed and fifteen thousand lives lost during the war. tlie shipping industry was holding on. Despite the past seven years’ depression British shipyards were building 50 per cent, of the tonnage under construction in 1927. Britain had a supremacy of fifteen thousand tons in big and tlie biggest ships. Tlie Prince concluded: “Mav the shipping industry, however crowded be the fainvav, steer into a harbour of active permanent prosperity.” Lord Kvlsant, proposing the health of “Th? Ministry,” said shipping would lie greatly stimulated if the Government reduced national expenditure and relaxed local rates. Sir Austen Chamberlain, responding, humorously observed that he was astonished that the health of n 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 taivdit all peoples that no part of the world could suffer without injuring all. Duly international good-will could promote international prosperity. The spirit animating tlie mercantile marine would secure for the Empire its share of whatever prosperity attended it.