BRITAIN’S SEA TRADE CHALLENGED.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18613, 8 July 1930, Page 2

BRITAIN’S SEA TRADE CHALLENGED.

AMERICA’S PLANS. The United States Government has announced its intention of aiding its Merchant Marine fleets in a big attempt to capture the trans-Atlantic trade, says the “Daily Mail." Vast sums are to be devoted to the struggle against European shipping companies, and the plan of campaign Includes the building of ocean greyhounds that will try to wrest the blue riband of the Atlantic from the German liners Europa and Bremen. Great Britain, Prance, Italy and Holland are already planning or building ships to engage in the ocean race. The United States is now confident of its ability to bestride the commercial world. Its export trade for 1929 was more than £1,000,000,000, surpassing the high mark of 1928, and for seven years it has steadily expanded. Not content with this unparalleled busine: the United States Government is uopeful of regaining its shipping prestige of 100 years ago. At a shipping conference in Washington the Postmaster-General, Mr Walter F. Brown, predicted that within a year all shipping yards would be working at full capacity. With a programme of expenditure estimated at £45,000,000, the shipping world expects, according to the Postmaster-General, that soon all the waterborne commerce of the United States will be carried In American vessels.

Mr Hoover was unable to be present at the gathering, but Mr Brown expressed the President’s views in the words: “It is his hope, yes, his determination, that within a few years our merchant marine shall be restored to the proud eminence it enjoyed 100 years ago."

Outlining the Government policy of aiding shipping through mall contracts and construction loans, Mr Brown said that existing contracts provided for the building and reconstruction of 35 vessels with speeds ranging from 13 to 28 knots, totalling 327,500 gross tons, and costing £32,500,000. By 1935 the United States Lines would, have two ships of 45,000 tons each and a speed of 28 knots plying between New York and Southampton. With the remark that the Government was doing its share to provide competitive merchant marine, Mr Brown concluded: “ Our people must learn to give their patronage to ships subsidised "by their own tax dollars.” The launch .of five new warships from two Italian shipyards and the laying of the keel of a new giant liner in a third also call attention to the vigorous shipbuilding which is taking place all over the world—except in England, In England, although Great Britain’s mercantile marine supremacy is being challenged in many quarters, shipbuilding is in a very bad way. The number of orders received during the first quarter of this year for new ships was the lowest for many years, despite the fact that at the end of March, according to Lloyd’s Register, the merchant tonnage under construction in Great Britain and Ireland stood at 360 ships at 1,614,993 tons. Orders for cargo boats have been practically negligible and tanker orders, a notable feature during recent months, have almost ceased. Firms engaged on liner work are completing the vessels under construction and dispensing with large numbers of workpeople, being unable to secure other oi ders. Warship work alone before the war represented 25 per cent, of the value of British shipbuilding, but at present there is under construction in private yards only half the tonnage building a ago an d less than one-seventh of the average warship tonnage under construction during the three years 1912-14. Italian yards are building twice as much warship tonnage as British yard?. The serious depression in shipping, too, and the great increase in tonnage laid up—from 352,659 tons in January to 892,154 tons in April, and including even new ships which have not made a single voyage—have made orders and inquiries shill more scarce. An increased amount of work, compared with December, is in hand in Italy, the United. States, Denmark, and Sweden. Compared with a year ago the Italian work has increased by 60 per cent., and in the United States, where financial assistance is given by the Government, by 131 per cent.