The Shipping of the World.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 7, 1 May 1909, Page 228

The Shipping of the World.

Here is a total trade volume of slightly over 2,900 millions. It is clear that Britain's share is something under one third of the whole. In addition it is well known that Britain carries more than half. The carrying trade is one of the sources of Britain's trade supremacy, as Mr. Asquith pointed out at the Imperial Conference. The corollary to the commercial supremacy is the maritime supremacy in the fuller sense of sea power. With regard to the latter, the belief of the British

people has been for years in the unquestioned superiority of Britain. We have had the Two Power Standard, and now we have the One Power Standard. But until the debate the other day in the House of Commons on the Naval Estimates, no one but a few expert statisticians was aware of the rapidity with which our building programmes were being overtaken by the Germans and some other nations likewise. From some figures published by our contemporary Engineering it appears that the supremacy on both the commercial and the fighting sides is threatened with loss. We publish the analysis of the commercial figures given by our contemporary. The comments are so full and clear that the publication of the tables is quite unnecessary.

Imports £ Expoits £ Volume T. United ) Kingdom ) Germany 513,475,000 309,048,000 377,220,000 332,030,000 890,695,000 641,078,000 Belgium 134,904,000 103,413,000 238,317,000 France ... United I States ) 342,634,000 232,584,000 210,878,000 360,238,000 553,512,000 592,822,000

The latest statistics of the Board of Trade give the total returns for five countries and are well worth studying at the present crisis. The figures are for 1908.