Chapter XIX: The Minor Mercantile Marines

One important result of the war was to readjust the respective positions of the nations of the world in regard to their merchant fleets. Considering only steel and iron steam tonnage, the nations were in the following order of precedence immediately prior to the war: British Empire, Germany, Scandinavia, France, the United States; Japan, Holland, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, Greece. But to-day the following is the order: British Empire, United States, and then there is an immense drop to Scandinavia, France, Japan, Italy, Holland, Spain, Germany and Greece about equal, and no Austro-Hungarian merchant ships.

Whilst Scandinavia still occupies the third place, she represents only 7·7 of the world’s steam tonnage as against the United States’ 22·7 and the British Empire’s 39·3. Outside the belligerents the Scandinavians were the most important merchant fleet throughout the period of hostilities, and Norway was more important than Sweden. From the earliest times in European history the sea-spirit has been a real influence in Scandinavia, and some of the finest sailormen in the world have come from there. It is that spirit which has built up the Scandinavian merchant fleets, not merely through the sailing-ship days, but after. To them were sold many of Britain’s clippers and other vessels as steam gradually became dominant; and even now they purchase obsolete British steamships, give them another name and put them into service again. The Allan liner _Virginian_, the first Atlantic turbine steamer, for instance, is now running in the Swedish-American Line.

The war found the Scandinavians with a comparatively large merchant fleet, not merely of steam vessels, but of sailing craft. Only those who were in the North Sea at that time could realise this fact, and as the years went on it became still more emphasised. For they were able to sell their agricultural produce to Germany for high prices, and they sold, also at a high rate, large supplies of food and of timber to Great Britain. The result was that the enormous demand for merchant ships brought great wealth to these Northmen. They placed a large number of orders with British shipbuilding firms prior to peace, and in one area alone these orders amounted to 450,000 tons. But then came the slump, ships were not wanted, because trade became bad, many shipowners were soon in financial straits and merchant captains found themselves without employment. The result is, that notwithstanding the boom, they owned in June 1921 only 7·7 as against 8·7 in June 1914 of the world’s sea-going steam tonnage. On the other hand, they have shown considerable enterprise in evolving the ocean-going motor ship. But whereas the Baltic meant so much to their shipping, the revolutionary upheavals in Russia and Germany have thoroughly disorganised that most important section of their trade. To take one instance alone, before the war, and even during those years, Sweden used to export in small steamships large quantities of iron ore to Germany, but now these exports have considerably diminished. Nevertheless, the possession of these Scandinavian merchant fleets, consisting as they do principally of small rather than big ships, is a strong factor to be considered in the future.

To-day the French Mercantile Marine is of the same strength as Japan, owing to the last-mentioned country having gone ahead rather than the former having gone astern. The acquisition of a number of ex-German liners after the Armistice was something of a windfall, though it was a long time before some of the big craft were requisitioned. The Messageries Maritimes, for example, took over from the French Government the _Lucie Woermann_ (4836 tons) and several bigger ships. But as an influence in the shipping world, France is very different from what she was during the time of Louis XIV and after. The naval architects and shipbuilders in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were in many cases as good, and frequently better than, those of England or Holland or Spain. But this supremacy had long since left them by the time the steamship became prevalent.

During the war the French Mercantile Marine was used entirely for the prosecution of the one great cause, but France lost during that period 1,129,000 out of 2,556,000 tons of merchant shipping with which she commenced hostilities. This has been more serious for France, because whilst during hostilities the shipyards of Great Britain, the United States and Japan were able to carry on building, the French yards were almost exclusively engaged in manufacturing for their armies. In fact, they were unable to launch more than 143,000 tons throughout the war, though afterwards about a hundred ships were ordered in Great Britain, representing nearly 500,000 tons.

The French Mercantile Marine to-day consists of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 tons. Of this the fine big Atlantic liners running to New York make up a fair proportion, especially when we think of the 34,568-ton _Paris_, one of the largest liners afloat, and a singularly impressive ship to behold. As a result of the war Germany had to hand over to the Allies 521 ships, of nearly 3,000,000 tons displacement; and of these France was allotted 116, amounting to about 500,000 tons. But the greater part of her merchant fleet is based on the Mediterranean, running from Marseilles to the Black Sea, and her possessions in Asia and the Pacific, West Africa, and to North and South America. Most of her exports go to her colonies; and the short voyages across the Mediterranean to Algeria and Morocco, transporting corn, wine, sheep and vegetables, will ever be a valuable means of employing small tonnage ships. But it has needed a war to teach France that the whole of her shipbuilding and marine transportation required overhauling and revising. Her shipping industry was based rather on the policy of making profits out of other industries than of becoming a means of creating new trade routes and fresh avenues to wealth. It is only now that she is realising the riches of her colonies which merely wait to be developed fully. To France, curiously enough, belonged the honour of owning the largest and finest sailing ship in the world. This was the _La France_. Fitted with auxiliary motors in the early days of the combustion engine, these were afterwards removed. She sailed out to the Pacific in 1922, but had the misfortune to pile up on a New Caledonian reef close to her destination and became a total wreck. Thus perished the last link France had with its former race of brilliant designers of sailing ships.

In the rise of nations few phenomena are more striking than the way the Japanese merchant fleet has leapt into prominence in so few years. Even before the war she possessed only 3·9 of the world’s steam steel tonnage, and was the sixth power in the world as a sea-carrier; to-day she is actually bracketed fourth with France, and owning 5·6 of the percentage of tonnage. The Japanese are essentially copyists, and practically everything they know of shipbuilding or shipping in the modern sense has been derived from Great Britain. The war came as a grand opportunity to them, and as soon as the Germans vanished from the Eastern trades, the Japanese stepped in and took what they wanted at a time when our traders were busy with other matters. Thanks to the heavy subsidies granted by their Government, they have put up a keen competition, including the Indian coasting trade. Both geographically and economically Japan is well situated so as to expand her merchant fleet throughout the Orient and the Pacific, and all the evidence points to her intention to take every advantage of her opportunities.

According to the most recent figures, the Japanese merchant fleet contained nearly 800 steamships of over 1000 tons, representing nearer 3,000,000 than 2,000,000 tons. The purchase of a large number of second-hand ships from other countries at a time when, owing to the slump, they could be bought for less than half their cost in Japan, is one of the latest instances of her enterprise. The Italian proportion of ownership in steamships has increased a point as a result of the war and after, and the addition in 1921 of the big _Giulio Cesare_ was a considerable acquisition to such a small marine. Built in England, this 22,500-ton (gross) steamer was the largest vessel the Wallsend yard had launched since they constructed the _Mauretania_. She can do her nineteen knots and more, and being intended for the Genoa-Buenos Ayres route, was fitted with ample luxury to tempt the South Americans. But there is also a big emigrant trade from this port westward, and more than half the accommodation in the ship is intended for them. The outcome of the war brought Trieste, Austria’s only port, into the hands of Italy, and this may have an important effect on Italian shipping in the future. It used to be to Austria what Fiume was to Hungary, and both States used to give large subsidies to their Mercantile Marines and encourage transport to and from these ports. Just before the war the Austro-Hungarian merchant ships represented only slightly over 1 per cent. of all the world’s sea-going steel steamers, but now this amount has dropped to nothing. Fiume was the port whence emigrants by the thousand poured from their Slav, Teuton and Magyar homes on board the liners bound for the United States. It was Hungary’s only port, and then the World War put an end to its glory and made it a source of grave international anxiety.

But its close connection with the Mercantile Marine prosperity can be seen at once. For one steamship line alone used to take from there 30,000 emigrants annually. They used to run three steamships a month during the winters when bad harvests had caused the people to leave their homes for the New World, and each of these ships was carrying most of 2000. Then, having made $500 in America, they would for the most part return, and thus there was still further traffic for the shipping. The Austrian Lloyd Company owned about eighty steamships, though chiefly of small tonnage, but some were built in Trieste of about 4000 tons. With one steamship company the Hungarian Government actually entered into a contract, to last ten years, by which the former were to be guaranteed 30,000 emigrants a year; and a bonus of a hundred francs was to be paid for every passenger short of that number. It cannot be too much emphasised that the emigrant traffic has been one of the foundations of some steamship companies.

During the war the direct services from Scandinavia to America were strengthened; but the French emigrant traffic has never been great. Before the war the Italian steamship lines were largely under German influence. No emigrants could be carried to or from Italy except in a licensed ship; and a vessel more than three years old, not previously employed in the Italian service, could not receive a licence unless her speed was at least eighteen knots. But from the European continent by far the greatest emigrant traffic went from Bremen and Rotterdam in the two big German lines.

The present position of Holland and Spain, almost at the bottom of the list, shows pathetically that a country which in its day has been the greatest sea-carrier, which owned and built the finest ships in the world, may in a century or more be pushed out of the struggle unless her fighting fleet is able to secure free passage for the merchant vessels. Holland, at least, owns a small fleet of first-class liners, principally for the North American trade and to the Dutch East Indies. With regard to the former, Rotterdam has been to them a useful port for attracting a good many emigrants every year. Prior to the war the German lines were too wise to compete against the Dutch, preferring not to separate forces in concentrating against the Cunard and White Star Lines. Most Dutch steamship lines enjoy a measure of support from the Dutch railways, but in the past there was also a good deal of support from Germany.

[_Photo, Henry Hughes & Son, Ltd._

A FAST-DISAPPEARING SHIP TYPE.

Steam and motors have almost banished the full-rigged ship from the Mercantile Marine, but a very few still survive.]

The future of Mercantile Marines is the future of trade itself; for shipping not merely takes goods to market, but actually creates those markets in localities hitherto undeveloped. The sailing ship as an ocean-carrier is certainly fast disappearing, and everything now is reckoned on a basis of economy, but with strict regard to speed and efficiency. The need for shipping, apart from temporary slumps in the cycle of trade through prosperity to depression, must increase as the resources of the world become greater. If the tramp steamer forces her way up a shallow river and finds an abundance of a certain commodity which by some sudden turn in social life is much in demand in London or New York, this new trade will go on and on until a town is built on the banks, the river is dredged, and eventually liners call there not for cargoes, but to bring passengers. The town needs its regular mail service, the inhabitants require costly manufactured goods from England or America; and so, in the end, it grows to be a colony with its own special exports and imports. The arrival of every ship increases the trade, agents from commercial corporations land and start a new vein of development. Finally, after a couple of centuries, perhaps, the colony decides to have its own merchant fleet, and after it has got thoroughly used to this, and had some risk of war, it realises that its Merchant Marine must be protected by a fighting Navy. To-day Australia has its own liners, and Navy, and yet it was only in 1788 that the first thousand settlers landed there. In the exchange of wealth the sea is, so to speak, the counter across which the deal is done. You may live inland and forget all about the sea; you may hate it or you may fear it; but it is there all the time, and it means everything to any ambitious community. It is by means of the merchant ship that the sea is, partially at least, controlled for the sake of land development and the convenience of communities.