MORE SHIPS BUILDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21975, 9 June 1933, Page 16

MORE SHIPS BUILDING

SOME INCREASE IN NEW YORK BETTER BRITISH SHARE. Returns issued by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping show that there were under construction in Great Britain and Ireland at the end of March 68 vessels, of 252,401 tons gross, compared with 50 vessels, ot 225,497 tons, at the «nd of December, and 104, of 372,973 tons, a year ago. ihe shipping now under construction is -thus larger by 20,904 tong than that in hand at the end of the December quarter, but it is less by 120,572 tons than that being built a year ago. . . ~ The present slight increase in the amount of tonnage under construction is the first that has occurred since March, 1930. It is the more noteworthy since the British turbo-electric liner Queen of Bermuda, of 22,500 tons, built for Furness, Withy and Co., by Vickers-Arm-strongs, was included in the tonnage under construction at the end of the year, and ’she left her builders’ yard during the last quarter. With the • total tonnage at its present small dimensions _a single vessel of this ' size materially 'affects the figures. . ■ Comparisons are' affected by the amount of tonnage on which work is suspended. This was represented by 19 vessels, of 147,442 tons, at the end of March, which is almost . the same as the total for the December quarter, when work was stopped on 19 vessels, of 142,777 tons. A year ago the totals included 22 vessels, of 165,336 tons, bn which work wag suspended. About 65,000 tons of the shipping now under construction in this country, representing 26 per cent, of the whole amount, are intended for registration abroad or for sale. In Great Britain and Ireland work was started' on- 77,306 tons during the last quarter, a figure which exceeds ; 'by more than 500 tons that on which work was begun' during the whole of last year, and this also indicates, a slight improvement in the shipbuilding position. Presumably included in the new work would have been a twin-screw refrigerated motor vessel of 9000 tons gross for which the Commonwealth and Dominion Line recently contracted with Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson. Ltd., Wallsend-on-Tyne, for its Australian and New Zealand service. Two large cargo motor vessels to be built by Harland and Wolff, Ltd., Belfast, for Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, Ltd., are not included in the present returns. These ships are for the New Zealand trade. - ■ During the last quarter there were launched in Great Britain and Ireland only 12,942 tons, which shows a decrease, of 26,461 tons on the figures for the December quarter, and is much less than the total on which work was started. Of the 252,401 tons under construction in Great Britain and Ireland at the end of March, 68,981 tons represented motor tonnage. TONNAGE BEING BUILT ABROAD. * ■ Abroad the shipping under construction on March 31 was 488,543 tons, and was less by 52,000 tons than the amount in hand at the end of December, and was the lowest recorded since December, 1909. Included in this total were only 1325 steamship tons and 30,038 motor vessel tons on which work was suspended. The five leading oversea countries were France, with 97,489 tons; Sweden, with 82,332 tons; Italy, with 59.098 tons; Japan, with 55,570 tons; and Germany, with 52,565 tone. Work was started abroad during the quarter on 63,793 tons, being a decrease of 12,578 tons, while 7979 tons were launched, representing a decline of as much as 94,047 tons. . . Of the total, amount under construction in the world, of 740.944 tons, 34.1 per cent, was being built in Great Britain and Ireland and 65.9 per cent, abroad. The correaponding figures at the end of December were 29.4 per cent, for Great Britain and Ireland and 70.6 per cent, for other countries, and a year ago the corresponding proportions were 28.7 per cent, and 71.3 per cent, respectively. Two years ago the British portion was 34.7 per cent.; of the total. . , There were under construction throughout the world at the end of March. 23 oil tank vessels, of 169,690 tons, of which four, of 30,026 tons, were being built in Great Britain and Ireland; eight, of 54.000 tons, in Sweden; and three, of 34,152 tons, in Italy. Motor ships accounted for more than 90 per cent, of the total tanker tonnage under construction, which represented nearly 23 per cent, of the total steam and motor tonnage being built throughout the ''"’Although inevitably affected by the continued reduction in the total amount of work in hand throughout the world, the shipping being built subject to the inspection of Lloyd’s Register at the end of March amounted to 459.310 tons and comfrised 218,236 tons in Great Britain and reland and 241,074 tons abroad.

Wilton House, near Salisbury, for four centuries the residence of successive Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, is one of the few “ stately homes of England ” unspoiled in beauty and tamed alike an prose and verse. Here, from June 26 to July If will be staged a loan exhibition of historical treasures from the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxford, Dorsetshire. Hampshire, ar.l the Isle of Wight and Wiltshire. O .ginally the site of a Priory of Benedictine nuns, King Alfred in 871 converted the building into an abbey, and endowed it with his own palace at Wilton. After the dissolution of monasteries in the sixteenth century, Henry VIIJ presented the lands to Sir William Herbert, who was created the first Earl ol Pembroke. Wilton House entertained Sir Philip Sydney. Ben Jonson. Edmund Spenser, George. Herbert, Tzaak Walton, Samuel Daniel.' and Philip Massinger, and, according to tradition, Shakespeare acted there before James I in the first performance of “As You Like ft.” Queen Elizabeth spent three days at Wilton in 1563. and Charles I, a friend of the fourth Earl, was a frequent visitor.