Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1911. GERMAN SHIP-BUILDING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10227, 2 May 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, MAY 2, 1911. GERMAN SHIP-BUILDING.

There is perhaps nothing in the industrial world Of the last quarter of a century so remarkable as the growth of shipbuilding of all kinds in Germany. Though perhaps necessarily so, we haye been rather surfeited with accounts of the sudden increase, within the last few years, of German warship building and the programmes for the future in this respect with which we have to keep pace, but the great increase in private ownership of f!be mercantile marine goes much further back, the building being at first provided by other nations, principally GPeat Britain. The passing of the Ship Subvention Bill fof [IBBS converted the Germans from the position of ship owners to a moderate extent, to that of shipbuilders as well. The reason of early backwardness in l this matter is not far to seek, in Germany, the coal fields are fax removed from the iron deposits, both being far inland, while good natural harbours are few" indeed, these having to be maintained by expensive dredging. Not only, therefore, did costly carriage of materials, to 0 certain extent modified' sinoe by railway extension and the

v.. _ canalisation of rivers, stand in the way, but also absence of the skill indispensable in the design and construction of ships. None of these defects existed in the United Kingdom, which supplied the then comparatively small demand for German shipping, an example of which may be cited, i.e., the building on the Clyde between 1881 and 1887 of about £2,000,000 of the early North German Lloyd steamers. So recently as 30 years ago, the registered tonnage of Germany's merchant steamers stood at about 215,000, nearly all built abroad. Now, the same item in the statistics shows close upon 4,0u0,000 tons, or over eighteen times as much, and mostly built in the Fatherland. Immediately after the passing of the Act of 1885, the North German Lloyd ordered three 4000 ton vessels from , the now well-known firm of the Vul- ' can Company, of Stettin. Those were the first ocean liners built in Germany, and were named the BAyern, the Prussen, andi the Sachsen. It is stated that owing to inexperience in the work a good deal of money was lost by the contractors, and it | was some time, for want of capital and experienced skill, before anything like the present efficiency in the. shipbuilding industry was attained. However, the dogged determination and the readiness to learn from others, which is a Teutonic ■ quality, helped our rivals to sue-' cess, and not only were foreign designers arid workmen imported, but Germans were sent abroad to learn. Before many years were passed, we find the Hamburg-Amerika and the North German Lloyd Companies owning home built vessels, subsidised by the Government, of over 10y000 tonß, some of which have been engaged in the Australian trade, while other great steam companies followed suit. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, 14,350 tons, was built at Stettin in 1897, and the Kaiser Freidrich, 12,480 tons, at Dantzig in the following year, the former holding the blue ribbon for Atlantic speed for ' some years until beaten by the Cunarders of four years ago.