Ellerman Lines, one of the most important shipping groups in the world, referred the other day to "the dead set" which is being made on British shipping.
On practically all the trade routes it is opposed by vessels which have been partially built ani are supported at sea out of State funds and in many cases have running charges which are lower owing to the men. 5 smaller wages paid to officers and
In the Budgets of nearly all the leading maritime countries, provision is-now made for subsidies for shipbuilding and shipping. In these circumstances, the tonnage under foreign flags has more than doubled since the beginning of the present century.
The United States nas been foremost in expanding its merchant tonnage. Whereas it was of less than 2,500,000 tons at the beginning of this century, now it falls little short of 10,000,000, apart, of course, from the vessels on the Great Lakes.
Japan comes second in this movement, followed by Italy, Greece, arid Norway, the last named having built up a great fleet for the carriage of oil in bulk, ihe units of which are let on charter to other countries:
Since the Great War this movement has made rapid progress. The result of the unexampled activity in building ships is that, whereas the tonnage of the United Kingdom has decreased since 1921 by nearly 2,000,000 tons (from 19,571,524 tons to 17,543,941 tons in 1937), the shipping in foreign countries has, in the same period, increased from 29,837,841 tons to 48,849,519.
It is numbers and not tons which are ihe important consideration in time of war. The progressive: fall in the number of vessels of 100 tons and upwards under the British flag is shown in the following statement, embracing the last 30 years (the figures for 1917 and 1918 are not available)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.