BRITISH SHIPBUILDING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 14 February 1930, Page 6

BRITISH SHIPBUILDING.

The huge margin of British activity in shipbuilding as compared with that of anyother nation has been well maintained. even if the competition has become greater than it was. The figures in .the annual summary of Lloyd’s Register Showing the present position of the industry in Great Britain are encouraging. They do not suggest that the revival of prosperity for which the shipping world has been waiting has actually arrived. They show, however, that jthe output of the shipyards of the I United Kingdom last year was 54.5 per cent., or well over one-half of the output of ships for the whole of the world. It is a satisfactory feature of this percentage that it represents any improvement, even if a comparatively slight one, upon the corresponding percentage for the two previous years. But for the knowledge that it does not reflect the full productive capacity of the shipyards the launching last year of 1,500,000 tons of shipping in Groat Britain and Ireland might well seem a very impressive achievement. No other country made any approach to such an output, Germany being in the lead among foreign countries with 249,000 (tons and the United States comparatively low in the list with 126,000 tons. During the past year there have been ‘some signs of a rivalry in which Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States have all appeared to bo libely participants, in the projection of j ships of the very largest type, but these leviathans are still for the most part somewhat shadowy. The wresting of the blue ribbon of the Atlantic from the twenty-two-year-old Mauretania by the new German liner Bremen has, however, provided a challenge which one or other of the great British companies will no doubt before long answer effectively. It is of interest to note that jui the last quarter of a century the | world s steam and motor tonnage inci eased from twenty-eight to sixty-six I millions ,the proportion of this owned ' n the United Kingdom last year being twenty million tons. In the matter of nge of vessels the British merchant n^ v y makes a favourable comparison with that of other countries, 22.5 per cent, of the tonnage owned being less than five years old as compared with a proportion of 15.6 per cent, for the world. The most satisfactory aspect of Lloyd’s latest returns is that they reflect a brighter outlook for British shipbuilding. At a time when there is still depression in other directions in the Old Country indications of a recovery in so important an industry are par ticularly welcome.