Ship Building.

Manawatu Herald, 9 June 1892, Page 3

Ship Building.

The danger of the English flag soon being lowered in acknowledgement of some other Power's supremacy at sea, seems distant, judging by a few statistics on shipping which have been lately published. The United Kingdom owns 9098 steam and sailing vessels with a gross tonnage of 10,585,747 1 and her colonies own 2,808 having a tonnage of 1,842,877 1 ! making a total of 11,906 vessels and 11,828,624 tons !1 ! The next country is the United States which has only 8,357 vessels with 1,943,442 ton 3; the next in number of tons is Germany which is placed at 1,678,446 for 1864 vessels ; the next Norway with 3,394 vessels and 1,665,477 tons; and France comes next with 1345 vessels having 1,082,674 ton 3. Taking all the shippiug owned in the world, outside that owned by the United Kingdom, there are only 20,420 vessels with 11,011,884 tons, so that the United "Kingdom own 3 one third of all the vessels and more than one half the tonnage of the world !

Year by year the old fashioned sailing vessel has given way to steamers, and iron boats are giving way to steel. In 1875 there were no steel vessels built, but there was a tonnage of 157,466 of iron steamers and 103,521 tons of iron sailing vessels built, and 1,065 tons of wooden steamers, and 51,122 tons of wooden sailing vessels. In 1891 there were 503,015 tons of steel steamers and 179,881 tons of steel sailing vessels built, besides 18,182 tons of iron steamers and 2,480 tons of iron sailing vessels, whilst there were only 160 tons of wooden steamers and 8,441 tons of wooden sailing vessels built. In 1890, 686 new vessels were built with a gross tonnage of 1,183, 267. The size of the vessels are constantly being increased and the average is considerably more than twice that of vessefs built sixteen years ago. The proportion of steam to sailing, tonnage is now about three to one, while twelve months ago the proportion was nine to one.