BRITISH SHIPYARDS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20133, 30 December 1939, Page 5

BRITISH SHIPYARDS

BUILDING CAPACITY MEETING WAR LOSSES LONDON, Dec. 21. British shipyards have a construction capacity of 2,000,000 gross tons of merchant shipping a year, which is more than adequate to meet war losses, which so far have been at a rate of 1,250,000 tons a year, says the Economist. New merchant shipping on the stocks on June 30 last totalled 791,000 tons, but the total is higher now. The Economist gives merchant shipping losses from September 3 to November 30 as follows: British.—Eighty-one ships, totalling 311,553 tons, including the Rawalpindi, 1(i,G97 tons, sunk in an engagement with the pocketbattleship Deutschland; two other passenger liners, 23,764; 16 cargo liners, 95,037 tons; 41 cargo vessels, 127,730 tons; six tankers, 43,142 tons; and 15 trawlers, 5183 tons. French. —Eleven ships, 55,581 tons. Polish.—One ship, 14,294 tons. Allied Total.—Ninety-three ships, 352,428 tons. Neutral. —Forty-six ships, 174,942 tons. Grand Total. —One hundred and thirty-nine ships, 557,370 tons. These tonnages compare with 210,000 British and 40,000 Allied and neutral in the first three months of the last war. Then the heaviest losses, 526,000 tons British and 340,000 tons Allied and neutral, occurred in April, 1917. The Economist says that .in view of convoy and other delays reducing the effective carrying capacity, replacements must exceed losses if the pre-war volume of trade is to be maintained.