PEOPLE WHO WANT SHIPS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5302, 15 January 1947, Page 2

PEOPLE WHO WANT SHIPS

. i , — WOUL'D-BE IMMIGRANTS WAITI, NG IN LONDON TO COME TO DOMINIONS In Britain to-day there are half a - million haffled people like the Hulls, of Peckham, who are looking for a ship, whites W. A. Crumley in an article published in the Evening Post. Patient, determined Mrs. E. D. Hull is the mother of three girls who married during the war and have set up homes of their own in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Mi\ Hull, still young enough to want to see the world and his daughters some day before he's old, hands in his beat-book and retires from the police force in January. "So fhere's no use in staying on here alone, just wasting time and money," said Mrs, Hull. "Let's get going and visit the girls and see our grandchildren as we promised we would. We can stay a year in each country. We haven't got and we don't need much money. It is love that will take us round the world." In August the Hulls made their plans for that world .tour and those war-promiseA family reunions in the new countrres, in the new world after victory. To-day the Hulls have no ship: no prospect of a ship. The golden hopes of August have become the determination to see their children again some day before they die. ''Surely the ships are not booked up for ever?" says Mrs. Hull. In London's Strand on any weekday, doing the Dominion walk from Australia House to New Zealand House, South' Africa House, and Canada House, and in the three-hour visa . queue at the American Embassy, is a purposeful stream of men and women following in the footsteps of Mrs. Hull. "Meet Australia," is the banner welcome at Australia House. And back of the hall, near the enticing Australia exhibition, is a doorway that says "Migration Inquiries." Behind that doorway they say that 14,000 people have applied for emigration to Australia; that by the end of next year only 35,000 priority people can have sailed. The . last "Bush Brides," children and fiancees of Australian ex-ser-vicemen are at sea, outward hound now. But seven great liners are now diverted to clearing the 14y736 German and Italian prisoners out of Australia. Liners Sail Empty All the time Australia House presses the Ministry of Transport for ships, big liners, like the Carthage, sail t'o Singapore empty. Others sail with scores of empty berths between intermediate ports. The Ministry refuses to divert empty ships froni their fix;ed, hard runs. All the ships are overdue for refitting and conversion to peace. The companies do not want avoidable civilians'in their famous ships still in troopship rig. Austerity voyages destroy goodwill. So excepting for Governmentarranged priority passages, or berths secured on urgent compassionate grounds through the Sea Passages Priority Board, there will be no pasl sages for folks like the Hulls for at least a year. In New Zealand House, half-way down the Strand, 50,000 people have applied for emigration, and the number increasQs by 1000 inquiries a week. The shipping companies have in their registers the names of 9000 people waiting for berths. There will be no ship for ordinary folk like the Hulls for 12 to 18 months. • In South Africa House (Suid Afrika Huis), where all the noticep are in English and Afrikaans, the migration officer has 1100 inquiries a week, and thinks gloomily that this artiq^.e will cause increased inquiries tomorrow. The shipping forecast is: "Mc berths for ordinary passengers until four to six months after the ships stop trooping," though Cape ToAvn last week alone reported four shipr arrived with empty berths. Canada Houses's omigration officc in Piccadilly at the end of the day looks like a West End store after an old-fashio-ned January bargain sale. More than 150,000 people want to go to Canada. New applicants arrive at the ratc of 400 or 600 a day, even more when the sailings of the Queen Elizabeth or Queen Mary are in the news, and the queues ask: "Don't we come before tourists? Don't we, separated from our families, come before dollars?" The Canadian Pacific Line has 3000 registered waiting passengers. Perhaps they will have their hrst derequisitioned ship next June, but there will not be much before then. And to the Colonies, like Trinidad, although families have been separated since the war began, there is no passage, except on Government business Or authorisation, and no sign of a ship, even inside the next two years. ....This is the crux of the problem : : Ninety-three passenger liners are still requisitioned by the Government though 20 are' being reconstructed before going back to their owners. Only 30 wilD be reconditioned by June, among them the Queen Mary and Mauretania. Ship conversion and new shipbuilding have slowed down. Refitting takes twice as long as it used to doj shipbuildirig needs an extra month in every six. Shipbuilding is merely an assembling industry, for the shipyards assemble work done not only in the steel mills, but in all the main manufacturing indu'stries of the country. -The builders are at the mercy of slow-time British manufacturing industries wrestling with labour and raw-material shortages and Govemment controls. - Both buildings and conversion are

slowed down by the shortages of steel, timber, plumbings, baths, furnishings, electric fittings, linen, paint, even by 'lack of lenses for the navigation lights. Little nations like the Dutch and Norwegians have met those difficulties. Their reconverted, airconditioned, pile-carpeted • liners are already de-controlled and their food is spectacular. British colonial governors and civil servants "sail foreign" when they can, but ordinary folk are barred from these ships by our £75 foreign currency limit. - The foreigner avoids the austerity British ships, though once they poured foreign money into the Treasury. Down in Denman Road, Peckham, a bomb-bitten street typical of southeast Londop, the problem is the happiness of the Hull family. Up west in Whitehall the problem is to restore the efficiency of our shipping, on which Britain's trade and the development of Empire depend. It is the same problem,