The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1914. SHIPPING FREIGHTS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 69, 13 July 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1914. SHIPPING FREIGHTS.

The ease for the shipowner in the matter of. freights is set out and discussed by Shipping and Commerce. It is pointod out, on the owners' behalf, that already rates have been so cut that none but modern and wellmanaged vessels can bo run at a remunerative profit if all incidental expenses and interest on borrowed capital bo included. It is a fact that British tramp steamers in some cases have been laid up, and not always because they are either very small or old boats, but because, for the principal reason, cargo cannot bo found at romunovativo rates. As to the lower running expenses per ton of the largo boats, that i s apt to be exaggerated. It may bo admitted that the size does mean economy, but it would bo as true to say that the increased cost of running a small tramp steamer now is so much more than it was years ago. that it has boon necessary, for anything but coasting work, to build bigger boats if adequate profits are to be made, and, in view of the competition of the liners—which carry all the most profitable cargoes. Already rates have gone down to such a level that not a few of the big steamers are hardly able to pay their way. Among tramp steamers it may be said there is no complete or anything like complete agreement among owners, but when profits are cut to a certain point the law of self-preservation comes in, in lieu of deliberate combination, and the position of British shipping at the present time is such that any further fall in rates—that is, the bulk of the rates applicable to cargo boats only—would mean all-round Josses and the j laying-up of »ueh a percentage of

shipping that there would be a violent reaction, disastrous for the merchant. But, it is contended, the probability is the truth lies between what is pictured above and a quite different tale of prosperity in shipping matters.