The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-22

London. February 4.-tspecial Cor
 respondence. )-The whole world is now
 learning the lesson of the importance
 of sea power. so ably and persistnetly
 preached by that great American, tho
 late Admiral Mahan. England today, in
 spite of being involved in the great
 est war the world has ever known. is
 enjoying, in certain lines, unexampled
 prosperity because of the predon,inance
 of her fleet and Germany is suffering
 economically because of the infcriority
 of hers.
 In no department of British life Is
 the value of sea power more strongly
 reflected than in that of her merchant
 shipping. The shipping trade fin Eng
 land is enjoying a boom such as has
 not been known in the memory of liv-
 ing man and great fortunes are being
 made by British shipowners. The red
 ensign of England is seen in every
 port in the world while the merchant shipping flag of Germany has disap- peared from the seas.
 few concrete facts will make the
 shipping situation in England plain. According to "Lloyds Register of Shipping" Great Britain in 1914 owned
 s5S7 steamers of 100 tons and upward,
 having a total gross tonnage of 1S.-
 s92.0S9. Germany came second as the worlds greatest mercantile shipping owner with total of 2090 steamers with a total tonnage of 5.134,720. Par enthetically it may be remarked that the United States comes next with a total of 1767 steamers and a total ton mage of 4.390,07S. More than half of this, however, is accounted for by the lake traffic so that if seaborne traf- fic alone Is taken into account the Uni ted States is far down the list. It will te seen from these figures that Ger manys merchant fleet was roughly about third that of England and it was engaged in direct competition with 1t. The Germans. in fact, had ob tained the upper hand in some lines of trade, notably that with South America and some parts of the far east. Today England is doing the carrying trade that was formerly handled by her rivals. Even this does not end the tale of England's shipping boom, however for at the outbreak of the war immense quantities of shipping were required by the government for the transport of troops, provisions and munitions of war to the continent and for use as auxiliaries to the fleet. About 150J steamers are now under regular char ter for this work, so that they, too, are withdrawn from the regular com mercial service. It is only fair to men, tion, too, that the German commerce raiders, now happily nearly all round- ed up, have sent a score or so Of Brit ish ships to the bottom of the sea
 The result of all this is, of course, a tremendous boom. At the outbreak of the war ships were barely paying ex. penses. Today I am told that anyone who owns even a moderately good steamer can earn her full value in two or three voyages. For instance, freights from the River Plate to Lon don and back which were quoted be- fore the war at something under $5 q ton were quoted this week on the Bal tic, the great London shipping ex- change, at over $15.5O a ton British steamers from South American ports, which barely paid expenses before the war. are now earning as much as $35,- 900 net per voyage, and this in spite of the fact that seamen's wages and all other expenses in connection with the ship have gone up from IS to 20 per cent. steamer of this type would make about four voyages a year. so that her owner would net nearly S15O,- coo which Is not far from the value of the ship. In fact, have heard of one or two shipownefs who have paid for new ships out of the profits they have earned since the beginning Of the war.
 In the Atlantic trade the boom has been equally felt. The rate for the ship ment of coal, for instance, from North American ports to Italy has risen from s32b ton in September to over $lU at the present time and coal rates from Cardiff to the Mediterranean have risen from less than S2 to over $4 a ton. Most remarkable of all is the increase of the rate for time charters in which the charterers take over the expense of running the ship. This has iisen from $126 to $6 q ton---a clear 400 per cent.
 Of course all this prosperity is reflect sd in the shipyards of Britain. There Is ! demand for new ships now such as has l never been known before and the great | 'hipbuildng centers such as the Clyde | he Tyne, and Belfast, are humming with | industry and prosperity. They are busy | both with government and private work | Ind no man who can do anything that is lseful in shipyard need be out of a | ob at present. Indeed so insistent is the | demand for labor that a few weeks ago | he war office ordered that all recruiting | Or the new armies should cease In these | districts. It was felt to be more impor- ant to hurry on the construction of ships | han to train men to beat the Kaiser on | and. Of course this is reflected in the | wages of the men. The actual rate of | wages has not risen for the trade unions | 1ery wisely have decided that this Is not | time to stir up any trouble with the em- | ,loyers, but the employers have recog- | ,ized the situation and are paying all | orts of extra allowances. The manager If great Belfast shpyard to whom |
 was talking few days ago, told me that | n ordinary times most of the friction in | he yards is caused by men complaining hat they have been put on a particular y difficult or awkwardly placed piece of | york; where although they are being paid | he full union rates they cannot earn fair wage.
 "A man making a complaint like that n ordinary times gets little sympathy" ny friend said "He is just told that he as to take the lean with the fat and ay for the bones Now. however, there 5 never any question. If the demand is nything like a fair one we don't mind
 lying the man double rates or even more O get the work done and keep him in ood .hufnor. The firm is making money md can afford to share bit of it."
 But in spite of 1t all" my friend con- inued. Che men are not happy. They Cmplain that although what with over ime and extra rates and all the rest of 1t hey are making two or three times their sual wage they have no time to spend know of two or three cases where nen have thrown up their jobs and en-