AFTER-THE-WAR REPAIRS.

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 28, 1 February 1919, Page 12

AFTER-THE-WAR REPAIRS.

Now that the shipping situation gives signs of: easement, underwriters find themselves face to face with the- problom of repairs (states a recent issue of Syren and Shipping, published since the signing of the armistice). This will grow more insistent than ever during the next few months, as the facilities for effecting repairs improve. At present it is not an over-statement, of the case to say that, when compared with pre-war prices, charges are 150 per cent, higher. This has been the case even previous to 1917, the causes being scarcity and high price of material, shortage of labour, and the necessity, owing to our depleted shipping, of keeping ships actively employed. _ Practically the only repair work carried out was that which was necessary to keep a ship in commission. Nonessential work had to wait, with the result that there is a big accumulation of jobs which cannot be much longer deferred. The position has been rendered still more difficult by the fact that extraordinary depreciation, due to delayed repairs, is a very serious factor. The whole matter will have to be strenuously grappled with during the next few months, or the British mercantile marine, from the point of view of working efficiency, will rapidly go from bad tv worse. Underwriters' reserves will in some cases have big inroads made upon them during this period of squaring off arrears, but both they and owners would gladly get bads to the clean slataagain.