WORLD’S SHIPBUILDING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8680, 13 March 1914, Page 6

WORLD’S SHIPBUILDING

BRITAIN’S PREPONDERATING SHARE. The only source from which figures of foreign shipbuilding may bo obtained is Lloyd’s Return. The total output for the world in 1913, excluding warships (which amounted to 676,909 tons) was 1750 vessels, of 3,332,882 tons. This shows a very large increase—over 431,000 tons —as compared with the previous year, and is a record. After the United Kingdom, tho leading places are held by Germany, the United States, France, and Holland, in the order named ; but even those countries combined only produce about one-half the output of the United Kingdom. Britain’s proportion of the total merchant tonnage for the year is, as shown in “Engineering’s” analysis of Lloyd’s figures, 58 per cent. This is considerably less than in the two preceding years, when the proportion was 60 and 68> per cent, respectively. But in 1907, the last year of great activity, the ratio was also 58 per cent.; and in 1906, when the world’s aggregate nearly reached 3,000,000 tons, it was' 63 per cent.; but in years of depression the percentage has only been about 50 per cent. Germany's proportion in 1913 was about 14 per cent., as compared with 13 per cent, in the previous year, and 9.7 per cent, in 1911. Germany has been steadily improving’ its contribution to the world’s shipping tonnage, due in large measure to the activities of the shipowning companies of the Fatherland. In the case of the United States the proportion is for the past year about 8.3 per cent., whereas in the previous year it was 9.8 per cent., in. 1911 it was only 6.5, and in 1910 17 per cent. The French total, which is not quite so. high, as in the early years !of the century, is equal to 5.3 per cent., whereas in the three preceding years it- was 3.8, 4.75, and 4,13 per cent. Holland has moved rapidly into a relatively prominent position, but thisi year- the proportion is only 3.1 per cent, of -the world’s total merchant output, which is still slightly less than in the' three preceding years. Britain thus produces about 6 tons of merchant ships for every 4 tons by all the other nations in the world combined.