Franklin v. Britain

A bald, moon-faced U. S. executive, who uses his office floor for a filing cabinet, brought debate on Britain's North Atlantic shipping bill in the House of Commons to a sudden halt one day last week. Patriotic members of Parliament wanted to know and know at once whether President Philip Albright Small Franklin of International Mercantile Marine was really going to block the Cunard-White Star merger (TIME, Feb. 19).

"The information comes to me for the first time," declared Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain. "It should not prevent the house from carrying out the remaining stages of the discussion." Back in Manhattan after three weeks in London President Philip Albright Small Franklin announced that he had cabled his Lawyer in Britain to seek an injunction.

President Franklin's interest in the great merger which was to give Britain the world's biggest and fastest liner and a united front on the North Atlantic was a matter of $12,000.000. This was the sum still due I. M. M. for the sale of White Star in 1927, and the notes were secured by all of White Star's outstanding stock. Mr. Franklin said he had not been consulted. The terms of the merger, he thundered, were grossly unfair to White Star stockholders. While he personally was not a stockholder his company was a short step from being the stockholder.

The legal loophole for Chancellor Chamberlain and his shipping cronies was the fact that I. M. M. sold Wihite Star to Royal Mail. Royal Mail was the debtor, not White Star. It was Mr. Franklin's hard luck that in the meantime Royal Mail had collapsed.

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