NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1924. A GERMAN REVIVAL.

Northern Advocate, 1 August 1924, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper. FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 1924. A GERMAN REVIVAL.

While Germany is pleading poverty, evidence of her increasing activity and success in some departments of industry is available every now and then. She has, for instance, done a good deal in the way of rehabilitating her mercantile marine. Five years ago the German flag was not seen at sea as she had surrendered all her ocean-going vessels in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, but there has been a great change. Palatial passenger liners and spacious cargo ships are being constructed in complete confidence that the German people are again going to play a considerable part in the economic affairs of the world. It was stated recently that there was more tonnage in hand in German establishments than in all the shipyards of France, Italy, and Norway combined. Though the Germans plead poverty when asked to pay reparations, they are able to find money for the restoration of their mercantile fleet. Perhaps of all the mysteries associated with the economic condition of that country none is more arresting than Germany's rise once more as a great sea Power with a large and ex-

panding mercantile marine. It is not apparently yet generally realised how great is the extent of her recovery at sea. As was recently remarked in a lecture in London before the Institution of Naval Architects, "it is an anomaly that at a time when about 7,000,000 gross tons of shipping are lying idle in the ports of the world the Germans have been able to find steady and remunerative employment for the whole of their merchant fleet, consisting, in the main, of newly constructed and highly efficient ships. Freights have been earned in the immediate past on the gold or dollar basis, and wages anil most of the other charges have been dis bursed in the depreciated mark. Even to-day the wage of the German seaman is not more than about one-third that which is paid to British seamen." Tt would be an act of extreme rashness to attempt to foretell how the course of political and economic events in Germany may react on shipbuilding and ship-operating, but the possibility must not be ignored that Germany will once again be the most serious rival of Britain in these twin industries as well as in sea .transport. Germany now possesses a highly-efficient fleet, consisting mainly of new ships, and month by month further additions are being made to it. That German shipowners believe that the motor-ship is destined speedily to supersede the familiar steamer is suggested by the policy which they are pursuing. More than half the vessels which are now building are to be equipped with the new propulsive agent, whereas in Britain the percentage is less than half as great. It 13 recognised that, though the initial expenditure on a motor-ship is far greater than on a steamer, the former will earn profits where the latter incurs only losses. The progress of the evolution is recognised as inevitable, and the Germans, unembarrassed by the possession of a great volume of steam tonnage, are taking time by the forelock and are concentrating on the new type, their example in that respect being emulated in Holland, Sweden, and Denmark. In Britain the outlook for shipbuilding and for shipping trade is overcast, and British industrialists have to realise that their yards will be confronted in future with more serious competition than they had to meet before the war, especially on the part of Germany, while Hoiland and Sweden-are not to be ignored as rivals. Though labour costs in British shipyards and engine-shops have been reduced, they are still so high as to constitute a severe handicap in the keen rivalry for orders which is developing abroad, and it was foreign orders which in the past gave no small

proportion cf the workers more or less ateady employment. Britain's competitive power, so far as shipbuilding is concerned, is rapidly shrinking, while the Germans, enjoying all the advantages flowing from low wages ashore and afloat, and long hofflfe, are steadily and methodically regaining their position as shipbuilders and cargo-carriers.