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Furness-Bermuda Sailings Booked to Capacity Bermuda, which has continued to enjoy an unprecedented popularity during the past several years, will re- ceive a record number of visitors dur- ing the Easter holiday season, and so great has been the demands for accom- modations on the MONARCH OF BER- MUDA and the QUEEN OF BERMUDA, of the Furness-Bermuda line that the company, which booked the amazingly high total of 4574 pasengers on nine sailings between the period of March 17 to March 31, has been forced to hang out “sold out” signs on the re- maining voyages. Hundreds of disap- pointed persons have been turned away and the company has even been forced to route its South American motorliner EASTERN PRINCE via Ber- muda in order to accommodate a number of its patrons. Capt. Charles M. Armstrong, passen- ger traffic manager of the Furness lines said that each sailing is estab- lishing new all time records for the Bermuda trade and he is confident that he could easily fill another vessel of the MONARCH OF BrERMUDA’S type if one was available. The Furness-Bermuda line’s new ships, the QUEEN oF BERMUDA and the MONARCH OF BERMUDA, aS well as the number of new palatial hotels which have been built in the past few years have greatly contributed to the steady increase in travel to Bermuda. The Easter holiday exodus’ to Bermuda got under way on March 17 when the MONARCH OF BERMUDA sailed with 747 passengers. She was followed March 21 by the QUEEN oF BERMUDA with 725 passengers. On March 24 the MONARCH OF BERMUDA sailed with 827 passengers and the HASTERN PRINCE sailed the same day with at least 75 passengers destined for Bermuda. The QUEEN OF BERMUDA sailed again on March 27 with 700 passengers and was followed the next day by the MONARCH OF BERMUDA with 750 pasengrs. Satur- day, March 31 marked the final sched- uled Easter sailing with the QUEEN OF BERMUDA leaving New York with 750 pasesngers. The peak northbound sailings from Bermuda wil be on April 6 when both the QUEEN and MONARCH OF BERMUDA will leave the dock at Hamilton booked to capacity and will reach New York on the morning of Sunday, April 8. Short Cites Planned The success of the Canadian Pa- cific Steamship Line’s summer cruises from New York to Quebec and Mon- treal during the past two years, when a total of 14,843 passengers sailed on the Duchess of Athol and Duchess of Bedford, has prompted the company to repeat these short holiday voyages in the coming sea- 56 son, The Duchess of Richmond, a sister ship of the two mentioned above, is to be used and will make her first appearance in New York harbor on July 25. Three nine-day cruises from New York to Quebec and Montreal and return are scheduled, sailing at mid- night July 25, Aug. 4, Aug. 14, and * Aug, 24, the last sailing being to Montreal only, Rates will range from $100 top price to $65 minimum for a round trip, All passengers will be permitted use of the entire ship re- gardless of fare paid. Autos will be carried for $30 each way. Combined Ship and Rail Tours Arranged Arrangements were recently com- pleted between the Pennsylvania rail- road and the Grace line whereby travelers during the coming season can see their own country and at the same time visit our sister repuDlics at comparatively small cost. The traveler is carried by rail to New York, thence by steamer through the Panama canal, via the Spanish Americas, to San Francisco or Los Angeles and return by rail to his starting point. This permits of visits on the water trip to Havana, Colom- bia, South America, the Panama canal, El Salvador and Guatemala in Central America, and Mexico. On the transcontinental trip the Zion, Estes, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Yose- mite and Yellowstone Parks and the famous Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico are among the _ objectives which may be seen. The trip may also be made in the reverse direc- tion by rail to California, steamer to New York and rail to starting point. All the prospective traveler is re- quired to do is see his local railroad ticket agent. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., Pitts- burgh, has been awarded contract by the United States engineer office, Vicksburg, Miss., on its bid of $51,216, for the construction of two mooring barges. Bids were received Feb. 15; delivery to be made within 110 days. Shipping Subsidy Program (Continued from Page 10) Competitive Bidding HE department of commerce shall announce vessel and service requirements for routes to be sub-. sidized and awards will be made on the basis of competitive bidding, Re- sponse will be compared with data prepared in the department in order to determine the reasonableness of bids. Provision should be made which will permit the waiving of public bidding in the event only one qualified company is competent to bid on a particular service,” MARINE REvIEw—April, 1934 Big Gain in Passengers at San Francisco Optimistic statements made by San Francisco shipping men at the begin- ning of 1934 may have been taken with a grain of salt at the time, but the figures are more than bearing out those encouraging predictions. On March 15, the General Steamship Corp. Ltd., which handles passenger bookings for “700 ports on all the seven seas,” reported its February business up 120 per cent over the same month of 1933. R. V. Winquist, manager of the Gen- eral Steamship’s passenger department, credits the phenomenal increase in travel business to a combination of im- proved business conditions, the elimi- nation of fear of the future, and great- ly reduced. travel costs. In regard to the latter, Mr. Winquist says the expense of travel has declined during the past two years to a greater extent than the value of the dollar in foreign exchange. Many European countries have reduced hotel and train fares to offset the falling off of the dollar. For example, prior to the War—back in the “good old days”’— the rail fare from Naples to Switzer- land was $16.70. Today, with far bet- ter rail accommodations, the fare is only $11.60. Los Angeles Traffic Up The pick-up in foreign trade at Los Angeles is very marked when beth imports and exports for Febru- ary are compared with those of Feb- ruary, 1933. Exports in February of this year amounted to 329,229 tons, with a value of $5,412,047, while in February, 1933 exports totaled 263,- 890 tons; $3,880,182 value. The in- crease therefore was nearly 40 per cent in value. Imports in the month just closed amounted to 32,998 tons, valued at $3,576,152, as against 32,689 tons of $1,590,076 value in February, 1933. While this was a very small gain in volume it was an increase of 125 per cent in value, the large valuation gain due to large shipments of silk from Japan. Foreign Trade Increase Total foreign trade, both in and out, for the month, therefore, amounted to a little less than $9,000,000, compared with $8 ,327,- 583 in the previous month of Jan- uary. Shipments to Hawaii also showed a considerable gain over February a year ago, and also over January of this year. Lumber receipts for February averaged slightly over 1,000,000 board feet per day, 28,310.000 total for February, against 18,545,000 in February, 1933. Oil shipments were 6.149.503 barrels against a total of 5,430,687 barrels in February, 1933.