CANADA: Economical Empress

At one of Glasgow’s Clydeside shipyards last week, Queen Elizabeth II swung a wooden mallet bearing the carved likeness of a Canadian beaver. The mallet tapped a knife, which cut a cord, letting the traditional bottle of champagne swing against the white hull of a new ship. Then the duly christened Empress of Britain, a 24,000-ton passenger liner built for Canadian Pacific Steamship Ltd., went slowly down the ways into the water.

C.P. Steamships, a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific transport empire bossed by Norris Roy Crump, 50, of Montreal, is counting on the new Empress to spearhead a comeback in the Atlantic passenger trade. Before World War II, C.P. was one of the world’s biggest shipping firms, with fleets of liners and freighters in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Ten C.P. ships, including an earlier Empress of Britain, were lost in war service. By late 1952, when it was painfully apparent that costs were not going down, a $30 million order was placed for the new Empress of Britain and a sister liner.

The new Empress will make her maiden voyage next spring and will sail weekly between Canada and Britain, catering especially to the economy-minded family trade. She will carry only 150 first-class passengers, but will have tourist accommodations for 900. Her predecessor of the same name was famed for her luxurious ballrooms and bars; the new Empress will advertise its battery of washing machines, dryers and ironing rooms for parents traveling with children.