The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-09 00:00:00

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LONDON :
WEDNESDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER 9, 1842.

It seems by the " City Intelligence," that the
value of ships has of late very much fallen off.
Whitby and Newcastle built ships have fallen,
it is said, 31. per ton within the last eight
months, and ships built in our American pro-
vinces have been sold here at 41. to 61. per ton
less than they cost. The shipping which eight
months ago was supposed to be worth 28,600,0004,
is now estimated at only 11,440,0001., and as
much of it is mortgaged it is likely to pass, we
are afraid, from the hands of the present owners.
All the ports of the world, it is said, are crowded
with ships seeking freights at greatly reduced
rates, and few or none are to be had. The de-
pression, or rather the ruin which began in our
manufacturing districts, has now reached our
shipping as well as our agriculture, and all the
great producing interests of the empire are suf-
fering under te restrictive and the meddling
policy of the statesman who demanded and re-
ceived the enormous fee of Prime Minister to
cure all our disorders.
The shipping interest was distinguished for its
opposition to the reduction of the timber duties,
because it knew that whatever lowered the cost
of ship-building would reduce the selling value
of all the ships already built. What may be the
effect of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S alteration of those
duties, in conjunction with his various measures to
-change the direction of commerce rather than to
setngtor
ee
diaatotglfury'rbi ectde4telacee dri
va el: nlarge it, we cannot calculate, but
shippinginterest,
a n d
injuredtinteresthatt
sis
Ti t
Tory
eyTl If!
rlaieewsnandrisep,pl
haveii
shipping
ge
interest will allow us to say that it deserves no
better, for it has long .been generally Tory, and
the advocate of those restrictions on trade which
are now injuring the shipping. The political
and commercial opinions of the shipowners have
helped much to lower the value of their own
property.
But a more efficacious cause of the fall of the
value of shipping than either the timber duties,
or the unsettling, without extending trade, is to
be found in the competition of the shipowners
themselves. Not only more ships have been
built, but great care has been taken to improve
their qualities. The introduction of steam navi-
gation, as we see in the competition of the Ameri-
can Liners, has tended to accelerate the voyages of
sailing ships, while it has enabled steam ships to •
perform some voyages in one-third of the tune
which sailing ships- require. At present, for
example, the bulk of the trade is carried on with
Hamburgh by means of steam-vessels, which are
about fifty hours in making the voyage out and
home, while that used to require, on an average,
seven days at least. The alteration, too, in
the mode of registering vessels, has, no doubt,
tended to improve the qualities of all ships built
since the new law was enacted. Taking into
consideration the increase of steam-vessels, and
the various improvements which have been
made in sailing ships, 'and in navigating them,
we venture to state that two-thirds, or perhaps
half, of our registered tonnage notv perlbrms as
much work, or carries as many goods from port to
port, as the whole would, were ships now Managed
as they were twenty years ago. Notwithstanding
this great increase of efficieneY, the nuMber of
registered, ships in the United Kingdom and the

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