STATE SHIPPING LINES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 7 June 1923, Page 5

STATE SHIPPING LINES.

ALL ROUND LOSSES

lollowmg upon the announcement of the estimated loss of £1,000.000 on the Commonwealth State' Line for the year ended June 30, 1922, there comes the announcement that the total deficit for the past year on tfie Canadian Government steamers amounted to £1,800,000. The Canadian Government Merchant Marine owns 297,215 tons of shipping, and the Commonwealth Government Line 182,544 tons. The Canadian Government Line is the 24th-on the list for tonnage, and the Commonwealth 45th. The United States Shipping 13oaid has made losses ever since the start. It was i ;i 1918 that the Amen -huh began to build their merchant fleet, on which they spent £600,----000,000. Of steel vessels alone they completed MOO, with a displacement exceeding 10,000,000• tons. This great fleet was intended to be a permanent asset. Besides steel vessels, concrete and wooden vessels were built. The concrete tonnage has cracked and crumbled to pieces. The 280 wooden vessels, each of which cost £60,000 to £100,000, have proved uneconomic. Put up to auction recently there was | one bid for these vessels, £450 apiece. About 690 steel vessels have been laid up since the war, massed in rusting squadrons, and hidden from view as much as possible. There are in actual service only 360 ships, and they are heina worked at a loss of about £6.000?000 a year. -Since the Ship Suhsidv Bill was talked to death by a "filibuster" in the Senate they are to be placed on the market and sold.