Bad Times for Liners
The announcement that the lines associated in the North -Atlantic Conference arc reducing their passage rates drastically synchronizes with the issue of the Cunard coMpany's report for 1931, showing a loss of over £550,000 On-the year's working. The two.great German lines, the Hamburg-America and the Norddentseher Lloyd, are being reconstructed with financial support from the Goverment. It is hard to see what the shipping lines van do to help themselves under present conditions. Sailings cannot be cut without prejudice to the public service the lines undertake to render. The reduction in rates may do something, but what keeps Englishmen, at 'any rate, from travelling is not so much the cost of travel' itself as 'the cost of liYing the other side of the Atlantic; now that-the £ is worth less than four dollars. The- general impression, naturally enough, is that the denituid to-day is for simple rather titan luxurious accommodation; but the record of the new Empress of Britain,' essentially a luxury ship, which is stated to haVe earned £100,000 on her first season's working, modifies that verdict a little. The passion for speed Complicate's' the problem. With the Bremen ' and Etireipa ' setting the standard of five-day crossings, the eoinfiirfable eight-day cabin-boats arc at some dis- Mhinntage. But, givc:n a return to normal conditions, the 'Marcie of tranSatlaidic travel will be greater than ever.
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