TOURIST REPRISAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20039, 11 September 1939, Page 7

TOURIST REPRISAL

GERMAN STEAMERS & BOYCOTT OF LINERS Nazi luxury liners which up to two years ago carried the cream of the North Atlantic passenger traffic have been boycotted lately and run only at a heavy loss, says the People, a London weekly.

While British, French, and American vessels are booked up almost to capacity, the famous German ships, Bremen and Europa, are sailing with only 25 first-class passengers, compared with, for example, the Queen Mary’s 400 ,'ir 500. It is estimated that' the Government subsidised Hamburg-Amcrica and the North German Lloyd liners are losing as much as £25,000 on each round trip.

So eager are the German companies to persuade famous film stars and executives to sail with them that they are , offering 200-guinea luxury suites for as littie as lOgns.

In all 'ases the film folk have reused these tempting offers because following the Nazi treatment of the Jews and disclosures in the. recent German spy trial in America, it would be more than their jobs are worth to accept them. Mr. Donald Crisp, Hollywood actor and executive, is one of many who declined a cheap trip to Europe. It is believed in America that if any famous actor or actress did take advantage of such a cut-price offer the Nazi? would use the fact that he or she was travelling in one of their vessels as propaganda. On the other hand, the New York office of the Ilamburg-America Line and North German Lloyd have issued a notice that the names of passengers arriving and departing in their steamers will not be revealed. Feeling in America is so high against Germany at the moment that it is safer for those who travel in German liners to remain anonymous.

Recently, 10,000 men and women demonstrated against Germany’s treatment of the Jews, booed and shouted at the Bremen when she left New York.

And, on a recent voyage from America to Europe, the vessel, which has accommodation for 2228 passengers, several hundred more than the Queen Mary or the Normandie, carried fewer than 400, mostly Germans. According to American reports the shanghaiing on German ships of Germans “wanted” by the Nazis has done much to ruin Germany’s onetime supremacy in the luxury ocean transport sphere. 'Despite »a loss of millions of pounds a year, the vessels, will be kept running “for reasons of prestige.”/