More Money

Oceanic Steamships Lose More Money Fate of Mariposa and Monterey

THE Oceanic Steamship Company,

subsidiary of the Matson Steam ship Co., continued to lose money in the year ending March 1952 in spite of increased business on the San Francisco - Australasian route where its freighters are employed, and in spite of increased freight charges.

It was expected, however, that a US Government subsidy would in future put the service on a paying basis and the immediate future was held to be “promising.”

The re-entry of Oceanic to the trans-Pacific passenger trade and the present and future of the pre-war liners Mariposa and Monterey are still shrouded in mystery.

Three executives of the company visited Australia and NZ at the end of 1951 and were apparently en thusiastic for the re-entry of their company into the Pacific passenger trade. They were reported to have said that the Mariposa and Monterey were “out”—that the US Govern

ment had bought them for troop transports; and that new ships would be built for a specialised passenger service that would not carry cargo.

It was suggested that these ships would be built in Japan.

However, it appears now that the re-entry of the Oceanic Steamship Company into the Australasian pas

senger trade is as far away as ever; and that the largest part of the loss sustained by the Company in the past year was depreciation on the Mariposa and Monterey which have not, as yet, been bought by the US Government or anyone else.

It is stated in the latest report that the US Government is “deter

mined” to buy the ships as soon as the necessary funds are available.

It is now five years since reconver sion work was halted on these liners.

Every few months, rumours as to their fate circulate freely, but in the meantime they lie in some US Pacific coast port serving no other purpose but a depreciation entry in the Company’s books. In a post-war world that was (if not still is) starved for shipping, the whole situa tion appears absurd.