ON THE DECLINE

Grey River Argus, 1 August 1934, Page 6

ON THE DECLINE

BRITISH SHIPPING An Official Proof (Ans. & N.Z. Cable Assn.) (Rt< ei ved July 3 | al S p.m.) LONDON, July 31. Tin* Chamber of in the report, says that the slight improvement in international trade and the distinct signs of a recovery in Bii fish domestic industry have barely touched the shipping trade. A larg-* pari of |he industry is being starved, uni the tramp section, representing a luarter of the British shipping, has lei-lared itself to be on the edge ol hank rnptcy. Britain’s invisible shipping exports, -ays the report, were worth fifty-nine uillion sterling in 1933 compared with *ixty-two millions in 1932,- one huntred and thirty millions in 1929, an I ninety-four millions in 1913. It is a listurbing factor that, while in th? I’nited Kingdom the entrance an I •iearance of British shipping fell by me million net tons in 1933, t hi* t-lear-lio-es of foreign vessels at I'iilish >orts during the same time increase'! y two and three-quarter million tons. While Britain’s seaborne trade m -till below that of 1913, her ocean ton inge was 60 per cent, higher than n: 1913, and it now stands at sixty-eight nillions gross tons, as compared with forty-nine million tons before the war, ivhiuh is far in excess of the present >r the prospective requirements. The British proportion of the world tonnage, which 'was forty-one per cent, if the pre-war world tonnage, is now 27.9 per cent. The percentages of Erance, Italy. Japan anti the United '■'fates have increased enormously. Between them, those countries have spoilt one thousand millions of the taxpayers’ money in subsidies to ■iwamp the freight market with a vast glut of tonnage, which has been was! •<t as though it wen 1 thrown into the