Ships

Within the next six months, Nippon Yusen Kaisha will have six big fast new freighters plying between Manhattan arid the Orient. At Havre, the French Line is busy prettifying the launched Normandie for her queenship of the seas next summer. But far the busiest shipyards in the world are the British. Next month Her Majesty Queen Mary will travel north to the Clyde there to launch a 73,000-ton monster which in 1936 will take away the Normandie's crown of size. And the name which Queen Mary will cry as she whangs the bottle, will not be Britannia, but Victoria.

Twenty thousand tons is a big ship. Lloyd's Register of Shipping, published for the 101st time last week, reported that the number of ships of this size on the world's oceans now number exactly 70. Other Lloyd's facts:

P:Since 1914 total world tonnage has jumped from 45,000,000 to 64,000,000. One-third is owned within the British Empire. Next largest merchant marine belongs to the U. S. with 10,000,000 tons, exclusive of 2,500,000 tons of Great Lake shipping. Japan & Norway follow with 4,000,000 tons, then, Germany with 3,700,000. then France with 3,300,000, then Italy with 2,900,000.

P:At the century's turn one-third of the world's shipping was sail. Today all but 1,000,000 tons are either steam or motor. Before the War nine-tenths of all self-propelled ships burned coal; today one-half burn oil.

P:In ships now abuilding, the U. S. ranks ninth with 27,000 tons, just a shade ahead of Spain.* Fortnight ago, there arrived in Manhattan 88 blooded cows, bulls and heifers from the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Said the American Merchant Line: "The demand for space for highclass horses and cattle has returned almost to normal. The owners of breeding farms are buying again, which is always a good sign."

*Shipbuilding in the U. S. has virtually ceased because of the cloud which Senator Black's mail contract investigation has thrown around the question of subsidies. It costs about twice as much to build a ship in the U. S. as in any other land and at least 50% more to operate it under the U. S. flag.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.