The activities of the United States Shipping Board have been chronicled in a number of Reuter's telegrams lately, and they call attention to a very interesting state of affairs in the shipping world. One of the latest of these telegrams announced that Admiral Benson had submitted an agreement _between. the Hamburg-Amerika Line and the American Ship and Commerce Corporation whereby the old trade routes of the former would be opened to American shipping. This undoubtedly means much more'than that American ships are to be seen on and to engage in the carrying trade of these routes, for that would have been open to them at any time. What is apparently meant is that the Shipping Board has now the option of adopting a course already taken by some British companies, if in fact it is not proposed to go a great deal farther. It may be remembered that when the British companies announced their intention of taking up the "former German carrying business, they also, in certain cases, gave out the information that their agents in Germany would be the German shipping companies whose trade they contemplated doing. We may take it that so much at the very least is intended in Admiral Benson's proposal to the United States Shipping Board.
A Guivr or Ssuirpisc.
One reason for this proposal to the Shipping Board is to be found in the present glut of shipping in the world, and in gealing with this point a few remarks upon the position of shipping in general will be useful. At present British shipping is extensively and remuneratively employed over the whole world, but one has only to. turn to reports from Japan to find a very different state of affairs there. General depression exists, freights have fallen off, and owners have been talking of laying up their ships. One difference between the two countries is that Japan's shipping trade is of modern institution, whereas that of Great Britain, built up through centuries, has a worldwide organization at its back with facilities ull the world over for securing cargo. This accounts to a large extent for Britain's rapid recovery og the premier carrier of the world, although in this connexion we must not forget her universal reputation for efficiency. There is also a further reason for the present depression in Japanese shipping. When tonnage was short during the war some of the Japanese companies charged extortionate rates for carg., and even then' did not always give the space contracted for; and the memory of the business man is long and tenacious, she feels the reaction to-day.
America's Speciat Dirricuuty.
Shipbuilding in America, and in other countries on behalf of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.