THE MERCHANT NAVIES OF THE WORLD.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 214, 15 February 1875, Page 4

THE MERCHANT NAVIES OF THE WORLD.

{From the Pall Mall Gazette .) According to a recent publication of the Bureau Veritas the sea-going merchant navies of the world consist of 56,289 sailing vessels, measuring 14,523,630 tons, and 5365 steamers, of a capacity of 5,034,887 tons. The figures here given do not correspond with the official returns of the several countries included in this publication; but the difference is explained by the fact that the Bureau Veritas reckons only on sea-going vessels over 100 tons burthen. The great superiority of the British Empire at sea appears very clearly from this compilation. Thus, of the sailing ships of the whole world, over 36 per cent of the number and 37 per cent of the tonnage belong to the British Empire ; whether as regards number or capacity that is, England and her dependencies own considerably more than one-third of all the sailing ships that navigate the seas and oceans of the globe. In steam-vessels, again, the superiority is far more striking still, the British proportion being over fifty-eight per cent of the number, and nearly sixty per cent of the tonnage. It is strength in steamers that now ensures supremacy at sea. The figures just cited show how promptly English shipowners perceived this fact, and how effectually they acted upon it. The British sea-going steam merchant navy is now considerably greater than the seagoing steam merchant navies of all the rest of the world combined. It would seem, indeed, that the recent great rise in the price of iron and coal almost put a stop to the increase of the steam shipping of many foreign countries. In England it may have caused the increase to have been less rapid than it otherwise would have been, but it did not in the slightest degree check the rapidity of increase previously established, As compared with 1869, the British steam tonnage last year had augmented 76 per cent. In sailing vessels the United States rank next after our own country, but the interval is a very long one. In number the American vessels are little more than one-third of the British, and in tonnage only 40 per cent. In steamers the disparity is still more marked. The United States, it is true, occupy the second place in these also, but the American steamers number little more than one-sixth of the British, and their capacity is not one-fourth. It is to be remembered, however, that the United States possess a large number of both steamers and sailing vessels exclusively engaged on the great lakes and rivers, and in the coasting trade, which are not here included. With regard to steamers, France occupies the third place, with slightly more than half the number and tonnage of the United States, Then came in order Germany, Spain, Russia, Sweden and Norway, Holland, Italy, and Austria. This order is according to tonnage; it would be somewhat different were we to arrange according to number of ships. In sailing vessels, whether as regards number of tonnage. Norway, taken by itself, occupies the third place, immediately after the United States. Then comes Italy, then Germany ; while France, which was third in respect to steamers, ranks here only sixth, immediately after her great rival. Holland, again, once the greatest of maritime powers, is now, so far as sailing vessels are concerned, beaten by Spain and Greece, and only just takes precedence of Sweden without Norway. The decline of Holland is, indeed, not less marked than the prominence of England and the increasing importance of Germany as a maritime nation. Holland, as we have seen, is only eighth in steam tonnage, ranking below Spain, Russia, and even Sweden and Norway; while in sailing tonnage she is only ninth, being inferior to both Spain and Greece. Germany, on the other hand, as wc showed in an Occasional Note on Saturday last, by figures quoted from the Berlin Borsenzeitung, is already fourth in steam tonnage, and in sailing tonnage she has actually beaten France, though she is still inferior to Norway and Italy.