There is nothing new in the procedure, Similar financial assistance was given to the ding of the Mauretania and the Lusitania, What is novel, however, is the fact that the Government has been able to eradicate inter-British competition on this particular run in exchange for the help it was ready to give. It only amounts to a subsidy in the fact that the money will be loaned at rates of interest considerably lower than would have' to be paid if the required could have been the open market. That in itself is no small concession, and may very well be regarded as the first step along the peculiar ways which unrestrained foreign competition in shipping is likely to lead Gi Britain, As was recently peintfed out in these columns the nations committed to subsidy tion are spending no less than £30,000,000 annually in order to permit of their lines carrying on, for without the help given most of them would have gone rapidly to the wall. From easy financing to the granting of out-and-out subventions is not a very far step. Judging from recent statements in the House of Commons, it seems reasonable to infer, however, that that move will not be made until other remedies have first been investigated, but this latest development the affairs of the Cunard line is \dicative of the government's readiness to come to the assistance of British interests where a real need can be shown to exist, and is a comforting Promise that uneconomic com-Petition will be met, not to make British shipping lines pay, but to maintain them in that state which the needs of Empire make imperative.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.