24th Aug. Lioyn's Register Shipbuilding Returns for the quarter end on the 30th Tuue last are not without some consol lation for those who own property in steam and sailing ships. The actual tonnage under construction on the 30th of June was very much—65,000 tons—less than on the 31st of March; while the amount of tonnage for the construction of which preparations were being made was not much more than half that.at the end of the previous quarter. Low and unremunerative freights are more often due to over-building than to a decline in the quantity of merchandise wanting to be transported; and it isa curious thing that the largest steamship companies, like the P. & 0, are most apt to complain of their competitors over-building, while they are constantly launching new and larger vessels themselves; not merely for their legitimate business as carriers of mails and passengers, but also for purely freighting purposes. When over-building is reprobated, however, it should be America, Spain, and Turkey...Of the remembered that there is no finality in steamer building, and that every new steamer is a little better than the last; that owners of recognised lines and 2,500, forthe Sandwich Islands, all are obliged to keep pace with the times, either by reconstructing their old ships or building new ones; and that a they have few orders on: hand, build large number of the steamers. which we hear of as being laid up at home owing to the depression of trade, etc., are really laid up because though not old they are obsolete; that.is, they are not economical enough. to compete on even terms with the new steamers that are constantly being launched.
Excluding warships, there were under construction in the United Kingdom on the 30th of June 616,223 tons of steel;.18,794 tons of iron, and 1,205 tons of wood and composite steamers, against 583,462, 19,605, and 1,875 tons respectively on the 30th of June, 1891. 'There were also' under construction 140,344 tons of steel, 3,662 tons of iron, and 3,234 tons of wood and composite sailing ships, against 159,405, 3,120, and 2,833 tons respectively on the 30th of June, 1891. Old sailors were afraid some few years ago that with the rapid disappearance of sailing vessels, the race of seamen would die out, and there would be only left a crowd of fine-weather, tin-kettle, deck-hands, who would have forgotten, if they ever knew, what it was to go aloft in a gale of wind. But, the sailing-vessel though it seemed moribund some years ago, has come forward again, and of the tonnage under construction nearly twenty per cent. is sailing, For long voyages on certajy, routes the big four-masted steel sailing vessel can compete successfully with the: ocean tramp. It' is to be noticed, moreover, that of the vessels preparing—but not, yet actually under construction—51 are steamers of 92,964 gross tons, and 26 are sailing ships of 30,285 gross tons, the proportion of sailing ships to the whole being 25 per cent. We may add that "the tonnage preparing }is now less than it has been at any date since June, 1890. With the exception of that time, so low a figure as the present. has not been touched since September, 1887."
It is interesting to know what flags the vessels under construction are, to carry. As patriots we are glad to know that our shipyards are still the resort of the world, and we are also to glad to see that the British flag, will float over the greater number of these embryo mistresses of the winds and waves, Of the steamers we find that over half a million tons are for the United Kingdom and the British Colonies; about 24,000 tons for Austria, on whose progress. matters maritime we lately remarked 9,500 tons for Russia; 5,500 tons: for the United States, in' despite of the navigation laws that confine the Stars and Stripes to vessels built in the States; and one or two steamers each, of moderate tonnage, for Belgium, France, Holland, Mexico, Norway, Siam, South sailing tonnage under. construction, 126,000 tons are for British: owners 5,000 for Germany; 4,500 for Norway in one ship. It is generally known that most shipyards of any importance, when "on spec.' in order to. keep their hands and machinery employed; and accordingly: we find that 76,500 tons of steam and '9,000 tons of sailing ships were under construction, on the 30th. of June
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.