FURNESS, WITHY POSITION
Lord Essendon made it clear at the annual meeting of Furness, Withy and Company that last year's fall in profits from just over L620,000 to L5o5,121 must be attributed to a setback in shipping conditions over a wide area. On the New York-Bermuda service the company had incurred an unfortunate loss in complying with the request of the Ber- muda authorities to provide eight additional sailings last Easter ; the North Pacific service suffered from using costs, labour difficulties and cancellation of cargo engagements, and in other sections of the company's widespread interests earnings felt the effects of severe, and in many cases Government-subsidised, competition. Lord Essendon re- ferred specifically to the insidious form of competition developed by Germany under which the Reich provided that her purchases abroad must be shipped in German ton- nage, and also prescribed that certain descriptions of marks could only be used for payment of freights to German (Continued on page 162) FINANCE AND INVESTMENT (Continued from page r6o) ships. In these circumstances, he welcomed the British Government's recent moves to protect British shipping, which he described as "thorough and comprehensive."
Like other leaders of the shipping industry, Lord Essen- don refuses to predict this year's results, but he indicated that in some of the trades in which the company operates conditions had definitely improved in recent months. In other cases, however, movements of both cargo and passen- gers was still restricted and competition was severe. Prospects are clearly dependent on a revival of international trade, and I would include Furness, Withy £t ordinaries as one of the most promising equities in the event of a genuine im- provement in world politics. The yield at present is not very generous, but the potentialities are there.
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