THE SHIPPING OF THE COLONY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 62, 11 August 1874, Page 3

THE SHIPPING OF THE COLONY.

The “ New Zealand Times ” says The Commissioner of Customs, Mr Reynolds, in moving the second reading of the Bill for the establishment of Naval Training Schools supplied some statistics relating to the shipping trade of the colony, which it may be well to record. At the beginning of the present year, he said, there were registered in the colony 411 vessels, representing in the aggregate 3035 tons, and the crews employed in navigating these vessels numbered *OO3 souls. In addition, he thought we were justified in including in colonial shipping the eight vessels of first - class character and largo dimensions belonging to the New Zealand Shipping Company—ships which would require, as crews, about 200 seamen. As yet, these ships were not registered in the colony, but in all probability it would not be long before they would be so registered, and there was reason to suppose that, in the course of a little time, the ships of that company and of other colonial owners would supersede in the carrying trade the ships of other parts of the world, and that the colony would in that particular be independent of other countries. It was, he said, to supply seamen for this colonial fleet that the present Bill had been introduced, and he contended that it was not by any means too early to take up the question with which it dealt. The Bill simply provided for the establishment of naval training schools either on shore or afloat in which boys could receive a thorough training in seamanship, and with that object, the Government intended to take steps to procure from the Imperial Government one or more of the old men of war, at the same time making provision that the boys under instruction should go to sea for four months in the year. In the Australian colonies, the great difficulty, Mr Reynolds remarked, had been that the boys were put on board stationary ships in harbor, but by the plan proposed here the boys would be trained at sea as well as in port. The department was to be presided over by a Minister, probably the Commissioner of Customs, who had charge of the Marine Department, and all the moneys necessary were to be voted by the General Assembly.