AUSTRIA SELLS SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1917, Page 5

AUSTRIA SELLS SHIPS.

£1,500,000 iFROFIT BY HER SMARTNESS. A recent boom on the Vienna Stook Exchange in Austro-Auicrican ship'jsng shares was due, says the Cologne Gazette, to speculators getting lo know that the Austrian Government had permitted the company to sell several of its ships in American harbours oil very advantageous terms. The Austro-Anierican Company sold, with the permission of its Government, seven of its medium-sized cargo steamers to AiueriQa for 50,000,000 krouas. ( £2/201,000), which may be considered t-'.iuivaleut to a profit of 30,000,000. Two vessels of the Austrian Lloyd lying in Chinese harbours have also been sold at a high profit. The manager of one of the biggest German shipping concerns has informed, the Cologne Gazette that if the Germans had been given, in 'time, tlie saaiu permission as the Austrians, the Lloyd and Hamburg-Amcrika Lines would certainly have been able to save more thin half a milliard of marks for German national capital. Now the vessels are gone, and the money, too. The Cologne Uaxette points out that German owners applied to the German,; Governmcat for pwauttiau to s&3 their, vesiolo, but, with the excepties. of larse. passenger steamers, the Government oV layed its consent until the political eondition had been oo changed that a sale was no longer possible.