SHORTAGE OF SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1941, Page 6

SHORTAGE OF SHIPS

EFFECT ON BRITISH IMPORTS , FROM DOMINIONS NO HOPE SEEN OF EARLY IMPROVEMENT. STATEMENT BY MINISTER OF SHIPPING. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.50 p.m.) LONDON.' April 2. Holding out no hope of an early improvement in imports from New Zealand and Australia, Mr Ronald Cross (Minister of Shipping), at a conference with members of the Empire Press, said: “Our shipping is being more and more forced back to the nearest source for supplies. As far as one can reasonably see, we may be faced with a decline in shipping for a considerable time, after which the best that can be hoped is a levelling out to the present basis. "The only means of getting increased imports,’ he added, “is by methods of stowage, such as boning beef. Unfortunately this is more applicable to meat from South America than from New Zealand and Australia, upon whom we are dependent for dairy 1 products.” Mr Cross, reviewing the general position, said ships under the British flag were five per cent under the number at the outbreak of war. This did not include ships bought, requisitioned. etc., but many factors made the position not so rosy as it appeared. Britain had now bought all that could be bought, the Middle East campaign took up a great tonnage, the convoy system slowed down voyages, and the turnabout in ports, where there were many difficulties of unloading. all of which reduced the number of voyages a ship could make in a year, resulted in a serious drop in imports. This was coupled with an exhaustion of the supply of ships on the eve of the Battle of the Atlantic, but there was a contra account. "We have greater stocks stored in Britain than on the outbreak of war,” said Mr Cross. “We have a faster fleet than in the last war and better anti-submarine devices. Finally, Mr Churchill has personally taken charge of the Battle of the which is the surest guarantee that every resource will be galvanised into action.”