SHIPBUILDING

Waipa Post, Volume 36, Issue 2146, 19 April 1928, Page 7

SHIPBUILDING

GREAT INCREASE IN TONNAGE. After a severe depression lasting over two and a half years, shipbuilding in Great Britain at the end of December amounted to 1,579,713 tons, or more than the combined tonnage building in the rest of the world. According to Lloyd's Registry of Shipping over 200,000 tons now building in England were for registration in the British Dominions, and nearly 200,000 tons were intended for foreign ship owners. Abroad there were 1,559,008 tons under construction, Germany leading with 472,295 tons, which was considerably more than double the tonnage building in that country at the end of December, 1926. Other countries which had more than 100,000 tons under construction were—ltaly 183,216; Holland 174,887; France £115,029; and Sweden 100,700.

Ship owners tend more and more to the internal combustion engine, although to a much larger extent abroad than here. Of the total under construction in Great Britain and Ireland, motor ships accounted for 652,894 tons (over 41 per cent, of the total building), while abroad the motor ship tonnage reached 955,994 (over 62 per cent, of the total). The world figures for motor ships—l,6o9,oßß tons —exceeded by 115,356 tons the total for steam tonnage. "This," says the Daily Express, in a leading article, "is like old times and for three reasons it is as welcome as any news could be. One is that in building a ship an immense proportion of the cost —well over three-fourths—-goes in wages. Another is that shipbuilding cannot prosper without benefiting at the same time a large number of subsidiary industries, and these, for the most part, the very industries that during the past five years have been most depressed. The third ground for rejoicing is that the British mercantile marine is clearly becoming what it was before the war not only the largest on the ocean, but the fast-" est and the most modern.

"About a fourth of the orders we were fulfilling last year were on foreign account, and that again is a wholly reassuring sign. It means that the dominions and South America and the Continent, while retaining their old faith in the superiority of British workmanship, no longer hesitate because (fif costs or the fear of labour troubles to place their orders in British yards. Shipbuilding during the war had to yield much. It is now getting it back again with interest."