The new P, & O. liner Stratheden was launched on June 10 by Her Grace The Duchess of Buccleuch from the Barrow yard of the builders, Messrs. Vickers-Armstrongs.
Sir Charles Craven proposed the toast of the ship and her owners, sud in his reply the Hon. Alex. Shaw, Chairman of the P. & O., after thanking Sir Charles, went on to say the P. & O. Company and the P. & O. Group have always the most pleasant relations with Messrs. Viekers—Armstrongs, who invariably give them excellent ships. 2 "The Shipping Industry," continued Mr. Shaw, "is lucky in the relation-this applies to or colleagues of other Lines, both at Home and abroad. To take but one instance, we have no more agreeable colleague in the Shipping Conferences than those great Shipowners who come from Germany, and we adjust our difficulties with them in variably in a spirit of friendship and esteem. Perhaps this example has a significance which extends beyond the Shipping Industry itself, end indeed touches the fringe of ihe greatest problem in the world to-day.
"What is that problem? It is the problem of preserving for mankind the ci T and all the material, moral spiritual values which are bound up in it. In my humble opinion, not as a politician but as an ordinary business man, the greatest contribution which it is within the power of Europe to make to, the preservation of world peace hob in a growing understanding and firm friendship between Great Britain and Germany—not in substitution for any existing friendship, but as a new, steadfast and unbreakable barrier against forces which may otherwise disrupt the world.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.