SALE OF SHIPS

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20988, 15 December 1939, Page 8

SALE OF SHIPS

ACTION BY AMERICA * CONDITIONS OF CHARTER NEW ZEALAND SAILINGS (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 The United States Maritime Commission is disposing of 14 ships, prising the American Pioneer Line and Puget Sound-Orient Line. The conditions of sale or charter are that the vessels shall make at least nine sailings to New Zealand or Tasmania a year, plus nine to the Far East, or, alternatively, 20 to 26 sailings a year to the Far East, with the privilege of calling at New Zealand or Tasmania en route. The intention of the United States Maritime Commission to operate a service from the United States to New Zealand and Tasmania was announced some months ago. No American cargo service to New Zealand has been maintained for several years. The American Pioneer Line has a service to Australia.

The commission announced in May that the Puget Sound-Orient Line would begin running from Seattle to the Orient immediately, resuming a service which had lapsed for a year. An investigation of New Zealand merchant shipping costs, on which will be partly based subsidies to be paid to American shipping lines, is being made in the Dominion by a representative of the Maritime Commission in the Orient, Mr E. E. Johnson.