STANDARDISED SHIPS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17262, 1 September 1916, Page 6

STANDARDISED SHIPS.

ATTRACTIVE BRITISH SCHEME. NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING COMPANY INTERESTED. [From Our Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, August 31. Details of the big combination of shipping companies for tho purpose of building their steamers economically on standard lines have reached this country, arid the list of shareholders shows that the New Zealand Shipping Company is included.' The capital is £300,000, and has all been privately subscribed. The proposal is to equip a large ship-building yard at Chepstow, in the river Wye, to turn out vessels of standard design, thus economising enormously in the preliminaries of building, and in the output of parts for the equipment of the ships. The size of these standard ships is to bo about eight thousand tons not register, which will be a suitable capacity for the New Zealand trade. That- tinnew concern means to do its work on economical lines is evident from the selection of Chepstow as the building yard site. The little town, which hat many historic associations, is 168 miles from London by the Great V esteru Railway. But what is of more importance is its nearness to the Forest of Dean coalfield, only a few miles off, and the fact that the great ironworks of South Wales are in direct railway communication, with Chepstow, and only thirty miles distant. Thus the main raw materials of ship-building, coal and iron, are available in ample supply at the lowest rates._ Chepstow stands on the Wye two miles from its mouth. Probably the new ship-huild-ing yards will he situated' on the flats near the Bristol Channel. Theve is a very heavy rise and fall in the tides, and big ships will he able to get into the river without difficulty when tho tides are suitable.