AMERICAN SHIPPING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 263, 4 October 1933, Page 7

AMERICAN SHIPPING.

REVELATIONS AT INQUIRY. POLITICS AND BUSINESS. Received October 4, 12.5 p.m. WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 The continuation of the shipping investigation concerning subsidies disclosed letters written in 1930 by Mr Black, president of the Diamond Steamship Line, saying he “has been forced to play politics, which made me go as high as the President of the United States.” The'former Assistant-Attorney-General, Mr Donovan, was counsel for the line in its bidding activities for the United States Shipping Board vessels and received a fee of 100,000 dollars. Testimony was adduced that Mr Donovan got in touch with President Hoover at 'Washington. It was revealed that the Steamship Owners’ Association raised 292,000 dollars between 1929 and 1931 to finance an extensive publicity programme calculated to influence Congress in increasing mail subsidies. The money was spent in various ways, including salaries of publicity men, who often wrote speeches for, prominent men regarding the need for an adequate mercantile marine. It was disclosed that the association exerted its influence to have sympathetic senators appointed to various committees handling shipping matters, including the one now conducting the hearings. Replying to a charge that the association attempted to influence the selection of the American delegates to the World Economic Conference in London, an association official declared: “We were interested in the selection of delegates familiar with the merchant marine.” He added that British lines wore issuing propaganda detrimental to the maintenance of American shipping.