For the past few weeks a rather unusual situation has been prevalent in the local shipping trade, and while tonnage is scarce and freights are high there is not much trade to speak of. Usually, a boom in shipping or high freights, signifies a big trade. If in any one country there is a large cargo to be moved and freights move up, new ships come into the trade and freights are brought down; only when all tramps and other shipping available are engaged in other and profitable business do rates move up as high as they have done at present.
t present the cause of high freights is the want of tonnage, both in the local trade and at home.
In the Far Eastern coast trade, the Hamburg-Amerika and the N.-D.L. are withdrawn on account of the war. The usual tramp steamers are partly engaged at home and partly in the south, in the Hongkong Manila Bangkok-Saigon-Hongkong and Saigon-Manila trade. The steamers on these routes are mainly engaged in transporting rice and other purely local products, Formerly, this business was practically in the hands of the Germans whose steamers are laid up at present. The result is that in the Northern routes, the China Merchants, Jardine's and Butterfield's lines besides the Japanese boats have all the trade. There is more than enough of purely local traffic for these lines: hence, rates have moved up. So far as the total of the traffic is concerned, there is little likelihood of any increase.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.