Shipping Combine

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 5, 25 May 1914, Page 5

Shipping Combine

SOME THOUGHTS SUGGESTED.

BIG INTERESTS INVOLVED.

By Cable—Press Association—Copyright London, May it.

It is officially announced that an amalgamation foas been arranged between the Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and the British India Steam Navigation Company. The amalgamation is subject to the. shareholders' approval. It provides for the exchange of British India ordinary stores for 33 1-3 P. and 0. deferred stock and the preferred stock at cent, per cent. The companies will work as separate The P. and 0. directors will join the British India board and vice versa. When the amalgamation is completed the interests of the two undertakings will be in all respects identical.

ERITALN' MUST POLICE EASTERN SEA ROUTES FOR FUTURE EVENTUALITIES. Received 24, 5.5 p.m. London, May 23. The Daily Telegraph, after commenting on the P. and 0. and British India companies and their capacity for fighting foreign competition, adds that they have histories of which they may well ibe proud. . Meanwhile the problem of | Great Britain's safeguarding of the sea routes in the Mediterranean and in the East is becoming urgent. Our manner of solving or failing to solve it may decide the future of our rule and commerce, besides vitally allectang the position in the Persian Gulf, whence the Navy will secure its oil.

The amalgamation has practically not affected share quotations. P. and O.'s fell from five hundred to three hundred.

These two steamship companies mentioned come third and fourth on the list of largest steamship owners in the world. The Hamburg-Ameriaan Company heads tho list with 431 steamers, with a tonnage of 1,306,819 tons, and the Norddeutscher Lloyd comes second with 1-68 vessels of a total tonnage of 811,000 tons. The British India Company controls 142 steamers whose tonnage amounts to 660,000 tons and the P. and O. Company has 70 vessels with a tonnage of 546,000 tons. The P. and 0, Company has 20 vessels of 18 knots land over, but those of the British India Company are Blower boats, mostly more of the cargo-carrying type. The new combination will be close behind tho Ham-burg-American Company in tonnage and will contain fair faster ships, as the German line has only three boats capable of I'B knots or over.