LAID-UP TONNAGE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 28 October 1922, Page 10

LAID-UP TONNAGE.

As far as laid-up tonnage is con-J cerned, Australia is better off in this regard at present than most countries in the world (remarks the Sydney Ship-! ping List). Millions of tons of ship-! ping are tied-up in the harbours ot tlie' world to-day through lack of remuner-! ative employment. The trade of the world calls for economical and efficient' ships, and even if employment could be; found for laid-up shipping, the ma-' jority of them could not be operated at a profit, because they are too old. J The number of steamers of twenty-five years and over afloat to-day is formid-j able, and the excess of world' s> tonnage is not so big after ail, when we take, into consideration the number of ships' that have passed their.usefulness. Look-} ing at some* statistics received by the last English mail, they show that the| British and foreign ships laid up at the,' 36 principal ports of the United King-j dom on July 1, 1922, consisted of about ■ 600 vessels of oyer 1,800,000 tons gross. This represents a considerable increase on three months ago, when there were laid up at these-ports 484 vessels of about l; 375,000 tons. Included in the July total are 324 British vessels of 1000 net tons and upwards, or roughly, one and three-quarter million gross tons of ocean-going tonage, firming about 9^ per cent, of the vessels of this size on the United-Kingdom register on June 1, 1922. These totals omit British vessels laid up abroad and vessels laid up at the smaller ports of the United Kingdom. It is significant that the increase in the amount of the J aid-up tonnage, as compared with three monthsago, has\ coincided with a further fall in the index number of shipping freights, which was 33.25 for March, 19£2, and 29.83 for June, 1922, as compared with an average of 100 for 1920, and a maximum of 141 for-March, 1920.