London, Mar. 2.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, told the House of Commons at question time to-day that His Majesty's Government proposed to consult the Egyptian Government, in accordance with the provisions of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, on all matters affecting Egyptian interests which arose during the forthcoming Anglo-Italian conversations.
There were 32 directorships on the board of the Suez Canal Company, said Lt.-Col. D, J. Colville, Financial Secretary to ihe Treasury, in the House of Commons to-day-Of this number, he revealed, nine-leen were French, ten were British and two were Netherlands. At present one French and one Egyptian direc-worship were vacant. The British Government, the Secretary added, held 353,504 shares in the Company, of which the market valüe was about £35,000,000.—Reuter and Wireless.
The speed with which the strength of the Navy is increasing is shown by the tonnage figures. These indicate that at the beginning df 1935 tonnage stood at 139,000 and by the beginning of 1938 had been progress sively raised to' 547,000.
During the year ending March, 1939, it is expected that 60 new vessels Of all classes will be put into service, totalling more than 130,000 tons-The programme of the new ships to be laid down in 1938 consists of two capital ships, one aircraft-carrier, four large cruisers, three small cruis sers three submarines, three mine layers, two river gunboats, one destroyer, one submarine depot ship, one fleet air supply depot ship, a repair ship and various types of small craft.
Three capital ships are in hand for modernization work and another has been completed,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.