MARITIME MATTERS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1748, 6 September 1905, Page 30

MARITIME MATTERS

(By “Mainsail.”!

The Spanish Government intends at an early date to put into force a IaAV relating to the load-line, based on the identical regulations to which British tonnage has to conform. The Atlantic steamship rate war Avaa brought to an end. on July 29. The White Star, Cunard, North German Lloyd, Hamburg-American, La Veloce (Italian), Royal Mail, Fabre, Anchor, French, Spanish, Prince, Austrian, and American lines made an agreement to increase steerage rates from 16dol. to 24d01. The increase will, it is reckoned, mean an increase in the earnings of is continued for a year. Any party to 15,000,000d0l to the lines if the agreement the agreement may withdraw from it by giving six months’ notice. Agents Avill have their commissions reduced from 6 to 2 per cent. The importation of live stock at Liverpool last year shows a large increase on 1993 figures, notwithstanding that the importation of live animals from the Argentine was prohibited throughout the whole of the year. The figures are: 279,188 oxen and 275,803 sheep for 1904, as compared Avith 257,241 oxen and 193,780 sheep in the preceding year. It is interesting to note that the importations at that port now exceed 50 per cent, of the total imports into the United Kingdom, which evidences the great inportance to Liverpool of the live stock trade. A new life-saving raft, the invention of Mr Robert Chambers, of Dumbarton, Avas exhibited on June 28 in the Royal Exchange, Glasgow. The raft, Avhich fulfils all the conditions of a collapsible boat, has been accepted by the Board of Trade. It may be carried on the decks of passenger steamers for use in times of shipwreck, collisions or any other emergencies where the lives of those on board are in danger. It is made of three sizes—2oft, 26ft, and 28ft in length—and is subdivided into 40 watertight compartments. There are collapsible rails on the top, while the bottom is smooth so as to allow the raft to elide easily over a ship’s side. Jt is provided with oars, life-lines, haAveer, and sea anchor, and all the appliances required for life-saving purposes, and weighs only about half a ton. The owners, master and creAV of the Hamburg-American liner “Ambria” have been aAvarded £1,600 for salvage services rendered to the Khedivial liner “Assouan.” On March 9 last, Avhilo proceeding from Jeddah to Suez Avith 1,090 pilgrims, the Ottoman mails and specie, the /Assouan” became disabled by the breaking of her tail-end shaft. A few hours later the “Ambria,” bound from Yokohama to Hamburg Avith a very valuable cargo, fell in AA r ith the disabled^vessel, and towed her a distance of 530 miles to Shiez. The court gave special consideration to the presence of so many pilgrims on board the “Assouan.” The United States Government has bought the steel steamers Havanna and Mexico, well knoAvn in the Ward Line service between New York and Cuba, at a price of 650,000d0l each. They are steel twin-screw steamers, of 5,6*37 tons gross each, built at Philadelphia in 1898 and 1899 respectively. They aaull be used in the Panama business. Passenger arrivals at New York from Europe during June numbered 13,762 cabin and 81,033 steerage, and from ports other than Eluropean 3055 passengers. This made total arrivals, from foreign ports in the six months ended June 30, 78,587 cabin and 452,339 steerage. The captain of the British steamer Lillie, of the Donald line, has been presented Avith a gold Avatch from President Roosevelt, inscribed: “To James Durie, in recognition of his humane service m effecting the rescue of the captain and creAV of the American schooner Ida C. Southard, abandoned at sea, February 9, 190£” A shipping combination of which little is heard is the Sailing Ship Owners’ International Union, formed in May, 1904, as the result of a conference of British, French and German owners held in Paris, in December, 1903, to consider the unsatisfactory state of sailing ship business. It has to do only with vessels of 1,000 tons . net register and upAvard, and the control of the union is in the hands of an international committee, the members of which are appointed annually by the various nationalities in agreed on proportions. The avoAved object of the union is the binding together of sailing ship owners not to accept lees than certain agreed-on rates of freight for the principal homeward voyages in Avhich sailing ships engage, and members of the union are bound under a penalty not- to charter their vessels at a lower rate than the minimum prescribed by the committee of the union for any particular voyage in order to prevent the ruinous competition which had come into the business and reduced freights to such a point that they could not possibly pay expenses, and in many cases were leaving heavy losses to owners. The union was originally started on the basis of not less than 75 per cent, of the British, French and German* tonnage interested being included, but for 1905 the percentage has risen to- 87 per cent.