THE TRAMP STEAMER.

Wairoa Bell, Volume V, Issue 175, 9 December 1892, Page 6

THE TRAMP STEAMER.

PROTEST BY AMERICA. Under the heading of ‘ Tramp Steamars,’ an American paper lias an article on the British tramp cargo-carriers which are so surely absorbing the freights of nearly the whole world, and which srem to be causing a great deal of consternation among the New York ship-builders and ship-owners, A very large number of vessels are now laid up at the Brooklyn, New York, on account of the British tramp steamers carrying freights at starvation rates. The ship building is also getting so dull that the members of the Ship Carpenters’ Union have voluntary reduced their wages, and can only obtain work for half the time at that. In referring to the matter the Brooklyn ‘ Eagle ’of a recent date says : ‘ Although foreign bottoms carry almost the entire freight and passenger traffic of the United Stales, a foreign vessel is never docked here unless absolute necessity commands it. Lambert and Holt’s big line of English steamships, commonly called the ‘ starvation ’ line and other choice names, which does the bulk of the Brazilian trade with New York and Brooklyn, never by any chance docks a vessel here. Every dollar that has to be spent ou the fleet goes to Liverpool dock owners and workmen, and »t ine present time there are four or five of these vessels lying at Brooklyn wharves, So, too, with the other foreign vessels. They take all they can get from this country, but never by any chance spend a dollar here unless the expenditure can be avoided, The latest instance of the ruin wrought on American shipping by the cheap foreign tramp steamships is the retiring from business of H. Trowbridge and Son, of New Haven and New York. This firm had a large fleet of sailing vessels, and used to do an enormous trade with the West Indies, especially in sugar. The in flux of foreign steamships has driven this firm out of the trade, and now the entire fleet is for sale. Even the coasting trade is being usurped by steamships, and big ships, which are still in demand for long voyages to California, China, India, and Japan, also fin 1 it difficult to get charters, much of this trade being done by the big iron and steel clipper ships of England. Shipowners here are despondent over the prospect. and while the days of the sailing vessel is inevitably passing away, it is sad to see the vast shipping trade of the United states with all the employment and profit it implies, going to benefit countries which never leave a single dollar in America that they can possibly spend at home,” '