SHIPPING EFFICIENCY

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 27, 1 August 1917, Page 6

SHIPPING EFFICIENCY

The British Ministry of Shipping suggests the taking of so radical a step with respect to the disposal of British tonnage as would have been almost unthinkable before the war. From the cablegrams on the subject it is to be understood that the proposal is nothing less than assumption of the shipping as grand charterers, presumably at fixed rates, and its utilisation as one great fleet or line.. This will surely carry with it some moderation of freight rates, or, at any rate (vide the cable), the "diversion to the nation of the high profits arising from war 'conditions." Shipowners' profits -since the war have been prodigious. That everyone knows.- Owners have never before made such high profits. It was, no doubt, rather more than coincidence that the dividends began soaring simultaneously with the imposition of the British excess profits taxation. But ■there is one thing to be said for the shipowners that requires to be borne in mind when questioning their attitude towards all who are compelled to use shipa? When the war is over German shipping competition will be -severer than has ever y.et been known.- It will find Britain not only with greatly depleted fleets, but itself will have practically intact a large freight fleet of its own, and that heavily subsidised and financially equipped to wage the great economic war which -will surely follow the present war of men and-guns-and ships. British 'shipowners Icnc-w this, and are preparing for it by- consolidation of their interests. But in- the meantime the trading public— ■which includes the producing and consuming public—is being called upon (o furnish the stupendous fighting funds that will" be required, and the burden -is. becoming oppressive, to say nothing of the great inevitabls inconvenience experienced by the diversion of shipping from old well-established services. So far as this Dominion itself is concerned, it must be prepared for a possible further fi}jlt,ri«liQ|i Q.f fcpn.nftSß! '-I'"3 )wp«R Qf batter, phaese,, .and mej.v- mm- -ffisx? _

buoyed up by tho .Prime Minister's promise of an immediate supply of a considerable amount of tonnage, say, 170,000 to 180,000 tons; but tho prospects of sufficient tonnage before the seasons open are not yet sufficiently assured. With the assumption of control by the Imperial Government of all ships on the British registry it may improve,' but that remains to be seen. In the interim producers should not be found unprepared for a shortage of insulated tonnage when the dairy produce and meat export seasons open in earnest, as they presently will, with Argentine and South African supplies only some eighteen to twenty days' steam from Britain, as against our forty to forty-five days' peace-time runs.