Normandie Over Victoria?

"That really must not happen to May,"* was the word at Buckingham Palace last week after certain newspic- tures from Greenock, Scotland, had caught a royal eye. One showed a bottle of champagne exploding all over Lady Shaw-Stewart, dignified spouse of the Lord Lieutenant for Renfrewshire, just as she launched His Majesty's newest cruiser with the words, "I christen thee Galatea.'"

On Sept. 26, Queen Mary is to swing a bottle at the vast bulk of Cunard-White Star's new liner No. 534. Last week ship- yard officials thought they could find a safe bottle of low pressure champagne but said that if unfavorable winds hold back the tide on the appointed day there may not be enough water in the Clyde to launch their monster. Launching or no launching. Queen Mary, resolute as King Canute, planned last week to crack her bottle on Sept. 26, will cry "I christen thee Victoria!"

Ever since the French Line launched its superliner Normandie (TIME, Nov. 7, 1932), the French Government which chipped in a heavy subsidy has been nervous as a cat lest Britain's No. 534 be altered in construction to make her the bigger ship. In Paris suspicion was still keen last week, but in Government circles it was said that French engineers recently managed to measure No. 534 in famed John Brown's shipyard on the Clyde. Their report: No. 534 is 1,018 ft. long, or 9 ft. shorter than the Normandie which Paris papers called last week "not only the largest ship but the largest moving unit in the world."

*Queen Mary's family nickname.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.