BRITISH SHIPBUILDING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 79, 24 March 1914, Page 4

BRITISH SHIPBUILDING.

As was to be expected, the shipbuilding figures for 1913 are the highest; ever recorded. Throughout the world th© industry has been phenomenally; prosperous, but the lion's share of the; boon has, as usual, fallen to Britain.: The output of mercantile tonnage in | the United Kingdom shows an increase; of 193,000 tons, and it amounts to 58; per cent, of the world's total output': last year. England launched in 1913; shipping to the amount of 400,000 tons in excess of that launched by all other countries taken together. There is at present, we are told, little sign of any reaction so far as shipbuilding is concerned. "I do not blame the shipbuilders," said Mr Chamberlain magnanimously in 1903, "for buildingships for foreign countries; but how long do yon think, under the present circumstances, that trade will continue?" It is difficult to predict, but probably to judge from these figures a!s long as a plentiful supply of cheap coal and iron give British shipwrights a natural advantage over their rivals. or until that advantage is in part neutralised! by attempts to force up artificially the price of the steel and other commodities on which the shipbuilding industry is dependent.