The Strafford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1916. MERCHANT SHIPPING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 16, 13 December 1916, Page 4

The Strafford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1916. MERCHANT SHIPPING.

The shortage of merchant shipping which is growing greater by reason of the continued submarining, is a big problem for the future. The real explanation of the shortage is, however, not so much because of what the German pirates have , done, but by reason of the enormous number of merchant vessels required by the British and Allied Governments for war purposes, while at the same time the needs of the Navy, which must come before all else, have fully occupied many great private shipbuilding yards. The Navy List today includes over two thousand five hundred merchant vessels of all sizes which have been commissioned as His Majesty's ships for the time being, and the withdrawal of trade ton-, nage is therefore enormous. With the Admiralty's consent at the be-j ginning of this year several shipbuilding yards were released from warships construction and repairing work, and a quite respectable total of new merchant vessels lias, in consequence, been built ami launched. It is stated that during the September quarter eighty-six vessels of a collective gross tonnage of 192,267 tons were floated, as compared with nine-ty-one vessels of 157,594 tons in the preceding quarter, sixty-nine vessels of 51,661 tons in the first quarter of the year, and seventy-two vessels oi 04,056 tons in the last quarter of 1915. In addition to this returns

show that at the end of the September quarter ninety-six ships ol 320,120 tons gross burden were under construction and some of these have by this tinU' heeii launched. In Sweden, Norway. Denmark and America, ship-builders are also very busily engaged in turning, out merchant vessels so that there is some reasonable hope of the shortage' being met to a fair extent. Naturally the shortage of ships has sent values very high, and the prices pwd !'<»' old and out-of-date ships is amazing. Lloyd's List states that as high as £-15 a ton has been paid for comparatively new steamers. New British steamers are selling at £35 a ion. as against £lO last year, and as much as C2O a ton is paid for ships twenty years old. A buyer who last year paid £'28,000 for a 1000-ton ship was able this year to re-sell at £IIO,OOO. It is not at all wonderful therefore to find freights abnormally high and until the good time comes when the Imperial Government is able to release the great fleet of auxiliaries it now requires we must continue to pay heavily .or our sea-carriage.