Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 437–439.
Schließen

Report of the Directors of the Bureau of Statistics on Shipbuilding in the Un. States.

In dem Report und in Evidence (inspection of) von McKay, dessen „once famous shipyard was entirely deserted“. Er sagt: „There was no sale for American vessels other than the small craft employed in the coasting trade. First-class ships he formerly built and equipped ready for sea for from 65 dollars to 70 dls per ton; now the same vessels would cost 110 dls p. ton; an investment which would afford no profit to the merchants who employed such vessels. The merchants could do better by investing in Gvt. Securities, which yield 6% in gold, on currency investments, and which are exempted from taxation. In the British provinces, the same class of vessels can now be built and equipped ready for sea for 40 dls to 50 dls gold per ton – about half. And this, too, after buying the oak timber in Maryland. If this state of affairs continues a few years longer, the nation would not own a vessel which could be used as a war transport in the event of war. All our cotton-carrying is done by foreign vessels. Our tonnage statistics for the main part comprise vessels engaged in coasting and inland navigation; very few sea-going ships. Ship-building at a standstill … The year 1854–5 was the best year of active shipbuilding in the U. St. From 1856, it declined somewhat during 1857, 1858, and 1859. Then it went up again, until 1861 it touched almost as high a point as in 1854–55. During 1862, it declined again, but not so much as it had during 1857, 1858, and 1859. In 1863, it recovered its former level once more, but soon afterwards sunk down much lower than it sunk in 1857 und 1859, and now in 1866 it was almost at an end.“ As a consequence the trade of America is beginning to be carried on in non-American ships.

Falling off der native tonnage by 1/2, foreign augmented by almost 2/3 … Much American shipping was (during the war) sold to foreigners, and the rest died out, and was not replaced. But nur ganz schwacher increase in American shipping since war. Ein Hauptgrund ist die unequal taxation, die 6% tax upon all the manufactured products of the country. It favours simple industries, and falls heavily on compound industries. A ship is a far more composite article than an umbrella. The frame of the ship may be cut out and put together in the building yard; but the iron, the yellow metal, the masts, the sails, the spars, the cordage, and much else must all be bought elsewhere; it is what Americans might call „an assembled article“. And upon every item so collected, two taxes, at least, are paid, one by the seller of whom the shipper buys, and another by the shipbuilder himself. The new taxation of America has, therefore, a most sure tendency to drive capital from a complex manufacture like shipbuilding to simple manufactures which are only charged once, and agriculture which is not charged at all. … In shipbuilding, America has only one advantage, cheap timber, and with the daily progress of iron shipbuilding, |127 this advantage täglich weniger werth, und America has an incurable disadvantage – the scarcity of skilled labour.

To some extent shipbuilding und ship-owning lately depressd (wenn auch nicht to the same degree as in U. St.) throughout the world. Shipowning is a trade in which a slight excess of supply produces a great depression of price. When a ship, with a crew on board, arrives in Bombay harbour, she must take what freight she can get; she cannot stay there, as the saying is, „eating her head off“, till freights get better. Accordingly, as soon as a greater number of ships come into port than there are pressing goods for, freights rapidly go down, and with them the profits of shipowning. If, on the other hand, there are but few ships in port, and there is an accumulation of goods on the wharf which the owners want to send on at once to a very profitable, but not, perhaps, very steady and lasting market, freights rise with wonderful rapidity, and then the shipowner gains enough to repay him for other seasons of bad demand and depression. Shipbuilding is a trade intended to supply shipowners with ships, and as the profits of the latter are intermittent, so also is their demand for new ships.

Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 443/444.
Schließen

Emigration from Ireland. (communicated by Leslie)

The mere number of emigrants, great as it is, does not give the real state of the case; it is the young and able-bodied who go, the old and infirm who remain, and a great part of the reduced population of Ireland is in its last generation. … The rise of wages is in a great measure nominal, and represents a fall in the value of money, not a rise in the value of labour; being accompanied by a rise in general prices, and being due to the importation of gold from the new world, not [to] the exportation to it of labour. Again, in the places in Ireland where wages are highest, as f.i. Belfast, immigration not emigration has taken places, so the latter cannot have occasioned the rise.

Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 456/457.
Schließen

Manufacturing Markets.

Bradford. Transactions in wool merely to supply the immediate wants of spinners. So small are the stocks of wool in their hands, that they only buy to cover new orders as they receive them.

Manchester, 18 April: Prices are steadily declining and, with one or two notable exceptions, almost total cessation of buying. Holders are now anxious sellers, and as the price of cotton has materially declined, they are now compelled to accept very reduced rates for their productions.