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Show SHIP SITUATION GROWSJERIOUS All Measures Thus Far Taken, Insufficient to Meet World's Demands. GRAVE CONCERN FELT Neutrals in Urgent Need of Tonnage British Prepared to Pay High Rates. LIVERPOOL, March 26. (Corre-pondspondenre (Corre-pondspondenre of tho ASBOCillted PrOBS.) The annual import of Ihe Liverpool Liv-erpool Steamship Owners' association, whirh includes practically all the im portant ship owners in England, emphasizes em-phasizes the seriousness of tho shipping ship-ping situation, and declares squarely Mm all the measures thus far taken by the government are insufficient. The report insists that Plato manage ment of shipping has failed and must fail, and expresses the opinion that only the mot radical curtailment of imports and a similar radical limitation limita-tion of the amount of lonnace used for military purpo?ps can save the nation na-tion from the most serious shortage of food and vital raw materials C ommenting on tho nppointment of a shipping minister as n member of! the Lloyd George cabinet, the report says : "The association welcomes the appointment ap-pointment .of a minister charged with' a duty of seeing that the mercantile marine is used to the best advantage ol the nation, and it will render ever assistance in its power to that minister. minis-ter. Cut the problem of providing the! nation with its esspntial supplies of food and raw material is only a part of the shipping problem. The essential essen-tial factors, the limitation of imports, the amount of tonnage to be devoted to purely military purposes ami the labor la-bor BhortagQ ;in be dealt with by no' one department. Thev must he faced and dealt with by the whole war cab-I cab-I inet." State a Bad Manager. Direct Btate management of shipping lis impossible, v;1s the report. The Btate is so bad a manager that state 'control of the nation's tonnage would mean quick starvation "The association associa-tion views with grave concern the growing number of British ships placed under t.ue management The experience of two and a half years of wai has shown lhat under state man-agemenl man-agemenl there is constant and serious wastage The conditions under which our overseas supplies are obtained, the Voyages made, and i allocs loaded aud discharged are so varying that wastp m carrying power can only be checked through the compelling power of com-"i' com-"i' rcial pressure indi idual profit and loss acting directly on all those concerned con-cerned whether as traders, -hip owners own-ers or transport workej?. "The inevitable results of state management man-agement have been wasip ot time, hiss or ocean carrying power, and therefore the Imports, if these be reduced re-duced under state management by only ten per cent and imiirinc hv aU past experience it might well be reduced re-duced by 25 per cent and upwards, the nation would be faced with Immediate Im-mediate shortage of essential supplies privation and panic prices. Weighed against such perils, the sa ing of i I freights, oven if cargoes were carried ! j for nothing, is a negligible factor. Military Demands Great. "To satisfy military demands sim e the outbreak of the war, about one-third one-third of the Britrsh mercantile ma-nne ma-nne has been deoted to purely v.nr purposes one. third of the British mercantile marine has a carrying capacity ca-pacity in ocean trade in the course of a year of upwards or fiftj rive million! tons weight of imports and exports It is manirest that ir the remaining I two-thirds had been utilized only in I proportion to the one-third under military mili-tary control, the nation must have star ved long ago. "It is no reflection on the officials of the state that tr?ey have bcr-n unable un-able to build up nn effectivp organize! organi-ze! ion. Thpfr task has been an impos sible one. They have obtained and welcomed the advice and assistance of. business men, but it is idle to imagine that departmental management, either v.ith or without such help, ran put errc!se over hundreds of ships tho kind of control which the hipping companies, with their highly trained and specialized staffs, mut exercise over tens of ships if the maximum of j carrying power is to bo obtained Risk of Delay. "Under aefrage conditions a shir spends half her time in port loading and oischarging, and thus thpre is on every voyage the risk of heavy deia. I The avoidance of undue waste in these operations is at the root of the effective effec-tive use of all ship earning powpr. To secure this the energy and enterprise of ihe ship owners and their staffs al home and abroad are taxed to the utmost. ut-most. There is only one British steam ship company that has under ii- COD Lrol mere than 100 vessels, and among the big British lines the average number num-ber of vessels under a smcle management manage-ment is about t wenty. mm; I hi 'tramps' there are few companies or firms having more than twelve essels. With this form of management the ship owner is kept in the closest possible pos-sible touch with each essel on every voyage, and also with the requirements of the shippers and receivers ol i h cargo." Touching on the subject of shipping under neutral flags, the report sa a World Shipping Insufficient. "The cordinal fact of the situation is that alter satisfying war demands, the total shipping available in the world is not suffieient to carry the cargoes demanding to be transported. It must be realized that we are in great measure meas-ure dependent on the carrying power of vessels under foreign flags. I'nder peace conditions the emploment of I foreign vessels was a business convenience, conve-nience, hut with the war demands, it is now an absolute necessity The following table shows the extent ex-tent to which our imports of food and I raw materials have been, and are now I being carried in vessels under our own and other flags: British. Foreign Total j Peace conditions, twelve months 67 33 100 First six months of war .50 22 72 Second six month of war 47 22 69 I Third six months of war 46 22 68 " j Fourth Bfac months of war .40 21 6i Fifth six months of war . . : 41 19 60 (The carrying power employed un-ider un-ider peace conditions is taken as 100.) "As the total shipping lonnage now , available is insufficient to carry all J that we are accustomed to import, the j management we must have is that which will bring in the greatest vol- lume of the supplies of which we are; i most in need. I'nder normal conditions condi-tions the oversea rood supplies or the i nation amounted to more than 16,000, j ono tons a year, while overseas sup-(plies sup-(plies of raw material amounted to about 26,000.000 tons To bring in 'these supplies, British and Foreign ves-j ves-j sels made upwards of 40,000 voyages In the year. Notwithstanding the disorganization dis-organization due to the war, the extent ex-tent or which it is almost impossible to exaggerate our supplies of all essentials es-sentials and of man- conveniences and even luxuries has been maintained. The whoi.- reduction m our foreign trade as rej2.ir.ls imports ma he shown bv the following tonnage figures for six months prior to the war as compared com-pared with the six current months Total tonnage, six months, 1914, 25-800,000; 25-800,000; total tonnage, six months, ending end-ing January 31, 1917 21,000,000." Grave Concern Felt. "The association views with grave concern the action of the state In regard re-gard to foreign shipping I'nder normal nor-mal conditions such -hipping would be regarded as our eoinpernor, but now it Is essential to our existence as a nation that we should obtain the maximum max-imum of ocean carrying power under both the British and foreign flags It must be recognized that while on ihe one hand the enemy by his submarine campaign Is doing his utmost to slop roreign ships carrying for the I nited Kingdom, on the other hand neutrals all over the world are in most urgent need or roreign tonnace, as they hae been deprived in ory great measure of the carrying power of the British ships upon which they relied in time of peacp. "It is Inevitable that foreign tonnage' will acc ept the most advantageous em-1 ployxnenl offered; therefore, to meet 'he additional war risks the i nited Kingdom must be prepared to pay tor Lhelr servrces above, and not below, ihe rates olfered by neutrals Any al tempts to keep the freights that can ae earned by foreign tonnage in the 'nited Kingdom trade below the rate., hat are being offered in the interna-: lonal freight market plays directly nto the enemy's hands by lessening ur essential oversea supplies |