LEVIATHANS BOUGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1921, Page 10

LEVIATHANS BOUGHT.

WORLD’S LARGEST LINERS. ENEMY SHIPS CHANGE HANDS. One of the best shipping deals that has been transacted since the war ended was the recent sale of the former enemy leviathan Bismarck to the White Star Line, by Lord Inchcape. Being the largest ship in the world with a gross tonnage of 56,000, and most luxuriously fitted, her sale involves a sum which constitutes an important deal, and following the disposal of the Imperator of 52,000 tons, to the Cunard Line a little while ago, completes the transfer of the two most valuable ships in the German mercantile marine. It. was a foregone conclusion, of course, that the Bismarck could only be bought by one or other of the great companies operating on the Atlantic, for which trade, she was designed and for which alone she is suitable.

In these hard times for shipping it is gratifying to find two British companies willing to purchase ships involving such a large outlay of capital. It is evidence of enterprise which deserves to reap—as it certainly will in time—its due reward. The Imperator is now in the North Atlantic service under the British flag, and as soon as the Bismarck has been overhauled after her fire damage and refitted in the White Star style she will follow. With these two ships and the Mauretania, Aquitania, and Olympic, all the largest liners afloat are now in British hands and. fly the red ensign, with the solitary exception of the Leviathan. formerly known as the Vaterland, which has lain idle at New York for eighteen months, owing to the inability of the United States Shipping Board to find a purchaser for her on satisfactory terms. It is certain (says The Journal of Commerce) that none of these huge floating palaces could be built to-day—-their cost would preclude it, and the fashion of big ships is rather dying out —so the probability is that they will remain the largest and finest passenger liners afloat for many years to come. It is not only appropriate, but it is probably good business, that the “crack” ships of the day should be under British control. That a few of them should not be British-built is of course some slight drawback in view of Lord Inchcape’s recently announced verdict that we have nothing to learn from the Germans in shipbuilding.