To Nowhere

Almost a half-century old is the U. S. law which prohibits foreign vessels from transporting passengers and cargo between U. S. ports, reserving this coastwise traffic for U. S. ships. Last year National Tours (Manhattan) struck upon the idea of chartering Cunard liners, conducting cruises-to-nowhere out of New York harbor and back. Fear of U. S. law forced a change in its plans, caused the cruise ships to put in briefly at Halifax to establish a foreign contact and technically break the voyage's continuity. Last week the American Steamship Owners Association was vastly upset by a widely advertised project of the Cunard Line to send its biggest and best boats (Berengaria, Aquitania, Mauretania) out of New York and back to the same port for regular week-end (Friday-to-Tuesday) Atlantic cruises-to-nowhere this summer at a minimum $50 rate.

Two years ago the Cunard caused a large stir by cutting into the New York-Havana trade of U. S. lines. At worst that was only a violation of trade agreements. But last week Herbert Brooks Walker, A. S. O. A. president, spoke darkly of invoking the Federal coastwise law against the Cunard to block its new scheme. Lacking apparently was any clear-cut ruling as to whether a continuous voyage in and out of the same U. S. port by a foreign vessel was the same as transportation between U. S. ports and therefore a violation of the law.

Last week in Manhattan arrived Sir Percy Bates, Cunard's board chairman. His board, he said, had studied the legal aspect of cruises-to-nowhere; he was confident no hindrance could be raised.

Law Cruise. Last week the French Line announced a six-week post-graduate law cruise this summer aboard its France, open to all members of the bar. There will be a staff of 13 lecturers headed by Representative James Montgomery Beck, one-time Solicitor General of the U. S. who was last week arguing New Jersey water rights in the U. S. Supreme Court (see col. 2).

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