SHIPPING OUTLOOK

Southland Times, Issue 19290, 8 July 1924, Page 5

SHIPPING OUTLOOK

PESSIMISTIC STATEMENTS. SAGGING TENDENCY IN FREIGHTS. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, July 5. The position of the shipping trade has of late shown no improvement and the views of a number of leading shipowners published in the newspaper Fairplay are extremely pessimistic as regards both the present and future. For instance, the managing director of a great shipping company points out that, though there has been a small but very’ welcome improvement in general trading conditions in the past few months, it is due to two outstanding factors: Firstly, The earthquake in Japan which led to quite an abnormal demand for tonnage to carry building materials, etc., to the devastated area; Secondly, the exceptional heavy crops in Argentina, causing a large demand for tonnage. Both these factors are now’ operating to a much lesser extent. The director continues: “With the great uncertainty of the general financial and international situation that still exists, resulting in a continuance of the restricted purchasing power of Europe, the outlook for the immediate future is far from reassuring. I cannot see any likelihood of the improvement experienced during the early period of the year, being maintained in the next half of the year. On the contrary’, the present sagging tendency in freights, which is apparent in most quarters, is likely to continue, perhaps in an accentuated form, with probably many steamers, which are at present wnth difficulty being maintained in commission, having to be again laid up.’ In this connection it is interesting to note that Germany’s shipping activities are being restricted by lack of money, due to the banks, which in pre-war days used to advance money to German shipowners on first mortgages on their ships, now refusing this assistance. A German busines man, who recently went to Holland to try to obtain loans for German shipping, gives, in the newspaper Borsenhalle, a gloomy account of his reception, and describes his complete failure to raise first mortgages on freight steamers, which, he considers, is due to unjustifiable pessimism of Dutch banks regarding the financial reliability of German shipping firms..