GREAT SHIPPING PROJECT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7960, 10 February 1906, Page 6

GREAT SHIPPING PROJECT.

TURBINE STEAMERS FROM WALES TO THE COLONIES. Particulars were received in Hyd ney by the laat English mail of. the influential English syndicate which has been formed for the establishment of a first-clasß steamship service between South Wales and the colonies. The scheme has matured to such an extent that the service will be inaugurated during the present year.

The question of an improved and direct communication between the Bristol Channel ports and the colonies has been receiving the attention of Cardiff shipowners, dookowners and importers for seme years past. All attempts, however, made to attract existing steamship lines serving the colonies to call at Cardiff, and make it a centre for the distribution of colonial produce, have failed, and the purpose of the present scheme is to establish a service that will make South Wales much less dependent for its colonial produce on English ports than it is at present. The details of the scheme have not yet .been divulged, but it is understood that it involves the construction at an early date of at least three or four huge turbine steamships of 15,000 tons register, with accommodation for 2,000 passengers and an extensive capacity for the transport of colonial produce. Specifications for the great liners have already been prepared, and tenders ara being invited for their construction Several Cardiff gentlemen—including Mr W. J. Tatom, one of the largest and most successful shipowners are conneoted with the scheme, which it is estimated will involve an expenditure of about £500,000. Ample accommodation will be provided for the new service at the Cardiff new South Dock, where two large warehouses have already been constructed; but Barry and Avoamouth where another large dock is under constructionare already mentioned as likely to compete for the trade. A' question of cuusitierable importance in connection with a soheme such as that now in the oourse of execution is (says an exchange) that of railway rates. It is wellknown that nothing has hitherto prejudiced Cardiff's claims as a port of call for the leading Atlantic and Eastern Colonial steamship oompanies so much as tbe preferential treatment accorded by railway companies, and under more favourable conditions there is no reason whatever why tbe port or Cardiff should not be msde a great passenger as well as a produce distribution centre, not only for South Wales but also for tbe Midlands. • There'is no doubt that the new line will meet with considerable competition, for among the lin9s already serving the ooJonies are:— Canada: The Allan, the Dominion, and tbe Jamaica: The Elder-Dempster line. And South Africa, Australia and New Zealand: Tbe Federal, UnionCastle, Aberdeen,' Shaw, Savill and Albion, Canadian-Australian, Houlder Brothers, Elder • Dempster, Orient-Pacific, and' the Peninsula and Oriental.