MERCHANT FLEETS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 153, 29 June 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

MERCHANT FLEETS.

THE GREAT SHIPPING COMPAOTES

OF THE WORLD,

The statement made in connection with the announcement of the purchase of the Leyland Line by J. Pierpont Morgan that it was one of Great Britain's greatest shipping institutions came as a surprise to many people. The name was an unfamiliar one. The Leyland Line is only one of several great fleets which have been mobilised to meet the demands of commerce.

The fleet of the Leyland Line, according to Whitaker, ranks seventh in point of tonnage, that of the HamburgAmerican Line being first. The Hamburg-American Line fleet includes 202 vessels, with a total tonnage of 541,083 tons. Of these, however, a large number are river steamers, tugs and lighters. The steamships number ninety-five, with a capacity of more than half a million tons. The second fleet in point of capacity also flies the German' flag. It is the North German Lloyd Line, with ninety-one ocean steamers, having a tonnage of about half a million. Three British companies rank next —the British India Steam Navigation Company, which has more than one hundred vessels and a capacity of nearly 400,000 tons; the Peninsular and Oriental, with a fleet of more than sixty vessels and a capa<city of over 300,000 tons, and the fleet of Elder, Dempster and Co., ranking

fifth, not only in tonnage, but also in number of vessels.

A French line, the Messageries Mart* (timet, occupies the sixth iplace, although in point of tonnage it does not. greatly exceed the Leyland fleet, their respective capacities being given as 247,338 and 245,000 tons. A line flying the Italian flag, the Navigazione Generale Italian a, is placed next, with a tonnage of 233,000 and a fleet of more than a hundred steamers. The Union. Castle, with ten thousand less tonnage, has forty-one steamers. The next place in the list is accorded to a flag thatone would not expect to find among the number, the Japanese. The Japan Mail Steamship Company, with _ its head office at Tokio, has sixty-eight steamers in its fleet. Then follow the White Star and Wilson lines, the former with twenty-four steamers and the latter with eighty-seven vessels, and with respective tonnages of 210,000 and 190,000 in round figures.

Of the twelve fleets in this list seven fly the English flag-. It is said that of the four hundred odd steamships of more than five thousand tons burden in existence more than three hundred are under the British Hag. Of these eighteen arc in the Leyland fleet, which Mr Morgan is to control. Should he •also get possession of the Atlantic Transport Company's fleet the number would be increased by several first-class ships, two of which—the Minnehaha and the Minneapolis-fare listed among1 the half-dozen biggest ships in the world. The gross tonnage of the seventeen ships owned by the Atlantic Transport Company is 99,741. Six ships, including two of 13,401 tons each, now building, will add 59,000 tons to the total capacity of tiu's fleet. One is surprised to find that onlythree of the big transatlantic passen-ger-carrying lines are in the list of big1 fleets, tt will be observed that the White Star Line's fleet, in proportion t 0 its tonnage, is small in numbers. Eleven of its twenty-four steamers have capacities of above ten thousand itons. It owns the Oceanic, the biggest steamship in the world, and is building the Celtic, launched a few days ago, which will have a gross tonnage more, than three thousand tons greater than that of the Odeanic Steamship men say that a big steamship is much more profitable than a small one to operate, as it can be handled by a crew much smaller in proportion to its size. • :