Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1921, Page 2

A RKCKNT cable stated that the shipbuilding returns in England had showed a considerable! falling off during the last quarter. According to Lloyd’s Register returns for the quarter ended on March 31st., the merchant shipping under construction in the l nited Kngdom on that date was €3,789.593 tons. In normal times this total would indicate great activity and prosperity in the shipbuilding industry ; but the tines are not normal and the total as it stands is misleading because it does not represent the work actually in progress and therefore does nut afford a true index of the relative position of the shipbuilding industry as compared with, say, twelve months ago. It includes a considerable ai - mint of tonnage on which work has Isoeii suspended owing to the very heavy reduction in sliippug values corresponding to the rapid and serious fall in freights, and consequent decline in the demand for tonnage. It. id o includes a large quantity of tonnage, the completion of which has been postponed owing, principally to the joiners' .stri'lifi. The tonnage on which work has been suspended amounts to 497.000 tone, and the tonnage the completion of which has been delayed amounts to 350,000 tons. Those two totals, amounting to 847,C00 tons, must therefore lie deducted from the tonne "> under construction in order to enable a comparison to be made with ;

figures for normal times, md we thus arrive at a reduced total of 2,951,593 tons under construction in the United Kingdom. As (simpered with the figures for the quarter ended December, 1920, there has boon a large reduction (1-16.000 tong) in the limning 1 launched, during the past quarter. Attention was called in the last qun”terly return to the fact that although the total tonnage returned as under construction was so large, the amount completed compared very unfavourable with that of pre-war times. Tt was pointed out that whereas in 1918 the average tonnage completed during each quarter was over 23 per cent of the total work in hand at the beginning of the quarter, the corresponding figures for 1920 fell lndow 13 cent. There was a still further red

tion (113,000 tons) in tlic tonnage commenced during the past quarter; and in this connexion it is significant to find that as regards the tonnage in preparation, but not commenced, there is a drop of 75 per cent'., as compared with a year ago. The total merchant tonnage building qbroad is .'1,283.1 1 3

tons; and it may be noted that, unlike the returns for the United Kingdom, those for abroad are not subject to any material reduction on account of suspended or delayed work, of which there appears to be comparatively little in other countries. Indeed, the gross figures given in the present quarterly return of tonnage building abroad can be fairly compared with those shown for recent years. It will be seen that the tonnage is aboTit f ton si lower than th total building at the end of Do her, 1920, due to tlic continued decrease in the United States of America in which country Die tonnage now under construction is less than 27 per cent, of the total building there two years ago. Apart from the United States of America, in which country the tonnage now under construction is less than 27 per cent of the total building there two years ago. Apart from the United States the leading cjou|ntries abroad are: France with 427,186 tons-an increase for the quarter of about 30,000 tons —Holland 417,693 tons; Italy 351,630 tons; and Japan, 294,316 tons—an increase of 46,000 tons. The returns show that there are at the present time 187 steamers and motor-vessels each of over 1000 tons with a total tonnage of 1.320.193 tons under construction for the carriage of oil in bulk. Of the total, 84 of 557,027 tons are under construction in the United Kingdom, and 82 of 632,016 tons in the United States; the latter figure representing 57 per cent of the total tonnage now ‘under .construction in that country. The tonnage of vessels under construction which are to he "fitted with internal combustion engines amounts to 503,842 tons.