THE TRAMPS OF THE OCEAN

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1620, 18 March 1903, Page 72 (Supplement)

THE TRAMPS OF THE OCEAN

The British public has a vague notion, that there is a stigma implied in tbe name tramp steamer, of which the tramp owner’has reason to be ashamed. According to Mr Kipling, the liner is a lady, and by inference the tramp is a kind of charwoman, sustained in a “precarious livelihood” by odd jobs. Indeed, the preiss, as well as the public, the Houses of Parliament, and many prominent Ministers appear to think of The British mercantile marine as a marine of liners alone. When the .Atlantic combination was formed and three or -four of our lines were sold to an American corporation, the impression spread abroad that British shipping was doomed and its proud volume decimated. These FEELINGS OF ALARM were due to the great share of public attention which, liners enjoy. What with the advertising of lines in the newspapers (whether by paragraphs, inspired or uninspired, or by formal advertisements) and the beautiful placards which every enterprising line hangs in tli 9 hotels, the railway stations and the shops, one can be little surprised That the well-belauded liner is known and the silent, unadvertised tramp is unknown. The truth is that the liners are not the British merchant navy, they are only one part of it. At the end of ±9Ol •the total number of sailing vessels flying tfcfp British flag was 7227 : of steamers tl&re were 8147. Leaving sailing vessels out of account, it is estimated by various well-informed officials of shipowners’ societies that out of these 8147 steamers about 6947 WERE TRAMPS. and only 1200 were liners. In fact, liners composed only one-seventh, while tramps composed six-sevenths of the total number of British steamships. This great volume of tonnage must, not be ignored by either the statesman or the writer if he is to have accurate knowledge of our mercantile greatness. Our supremacy lies in our tramp shipping. We are still predominant inlin--ers, but it is in this class of shipping that Germany and America can most boldly attack us. In tramps we have a long lead, for, excepting the small Scandinavian fleets and a few Continental firms, the world’s tramp shipping is British. The peculiar quality of the tramp is that she is bound to no one route and restricted to no regular succession of ports. She goes wherever, within the limits of the ocean, there is a cargo to he carried. —Mr Walter Runciman, M.P., in “Tire Worlds’ Work.”