SHIPPING SLUMP.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15595, 11 August 1921, Page 10

SHIPPING SLUMP.

LONDON, dune 6.—Tho shipping situation in British ports is the worst on record. Tho docks are idle and thousands of longshoremen, seamen, firemen, officers and engineers are walkin" about looking for berths. This is tho reason why the Olympic's crewsigned on at reduced wages without a strike, like the Aquitaina's crew on tho la.st voyage. Tho joiners have been on strike for nine months because the shipyards out off the war bonus of twelve shillings a ■week, and vessels are being sent to French and Belgium ports to get cabinet work done.

One of the biggest shipping companies which has contracts for 050,000 tons to be completed in two years, will pay £2,000,000, but when completed tho tonnage will be worth only 50 per cent, of the price paid. The same concern is opening offices in the principal cities of Europe at great expense and is spending money which; would otherwise go to the Government under excess profits. j Gordon 11. llobinson, the editor ofj "Fair Play," tho shipping journal, said: '"The position of tho shipping trade in Europe is worse than at any time in its experience. There have been slumps in the past, but never such a slump as at present. During the latter part of the shipping boom millions of tons of shipping changed bands or were contracted for in this country and on the continent, and many owners are finding it impossible to meet their liabilities, with the result that boats aro being thrown on the builder's hands. Mortgagees are having to tako possession through default. For instance, in the fall of 1919 a shelter-deck steamer of 9250 tons, under construction, was sold for £360,000: the vessel now ready for delivery, will only fetch ' £85,000. A single-deck steamer of 55C0 tons deadweight, which was contracted for at £275,000, on which £137,500 in instalments was paid, has been sold, owing to the default of the owner, for £60,000. Tho owners in each of these were foreigners who also had to suffer heavy losses owing to tho fall in exchange. Hut the drop has been greater in second-hand bouts, which have fallen in value in the past fifteen months about 15 per cent. In some eases boats aro today unsaleable. In Cardiff alono the losses' during tho last twelve months, owing to the fall in market value, amounts to many millions of pounds sterling. Tens of thousands of shareholders who have put their all into shipping in the hope of making good dividends, have lost every penny. "In the past investors in shipping have lost heavily, but the losses have never been anything like those during tho past twelve months. Of course, the main reason for the fall in shipping values has lieon tho drop in freights, which havo now l>een reduced to such figures as to result in absolute loss even under most favorable, circumstances. During the war everybody wanted ships, ships, more ships. It was claimed that every nation should have its own ships to carry its own goods. To-day every British shipowner would be only too pleased if ho possessed the money his steamers were worth at the beginning of last year. For a. while early last year the earning capacity was great, to-day it is only necessary to point ou that whereas tho British mercantile marine was worth from £BOO,OCO,COO to £1,000,C00,000 at tho end of March, last year, to-day it is not worth a fourth of this amount. The fall in values has adversely affected marine insurance companies, claims having increased while premiums show a tendency to decrease. It ig fully antici pated hero that a year henco there will be trouble in the nmrine insurance world. One or two prominent companies havo already admitted that there will be no profit a year hence in their marine account. A good deal of interest is still taken in the sale of ex-enemy steamers. Although the list is becominr smaller, prices aro being continually reduced. In many instances boats have been sold at less than the value before, the war. As the value of British shipping fixes, more or less, the value of shipping all over the world, no improve i"mit in prices can be looked for until all these boats have been disposed of. Shipbuilding is at a standstill so far as new orders are concerned, no contract for a cargo boat having been re-

ported for about twelve months. A number of important yards in different parts of the country will ho closed down •within the next week or two." Robinson added that there was not tho slightest doubt that the- Germans would have a most modem economical mercantile marine fleet in six years' time, whilei hJurope rind America fje.nerally would b« overladen villi the burden of obsolete ships lying- up in their harbors.