Much of this competition was State-aided, by the reservation of the coasting and sometimes of the colonial trade to the national flag (United States, France, Russia), by shipbuilding and naviga tion bounties (France, Italy, Austria, Japan), and in other ways. German shipping was not directly subsidized, but British owners complained that the through rates on the German State railways were manipulated to the advantage of German shipping, and that the medical control of emigrants in transit through Germany was misused to force them to travel by German lines.
In Great Britain the early steamer companies were heavily sub sidized for postal or Admiralty purposes, but from about 1875 the postal subventions were reduced to mere payment for work performed, and at no time had any State assistance been given in the construction and operation of cargo steamers. Yet British shipping still held an immense lead over its nearest rival. In the school of unrestricted competition British owners had become quick to respond to the needs of the world's commerce and to adapt the design of their vessels to the needs of particular trades. No other great maritime State placed its shipping so freely at the disposal of all countries. Many British lines ran regularly between foreign ports, and the ubiquitous tramps carried the Red Ensign wherever there was a charter to be obtained. While the freight earnings of British shipping assisted to adjust the trade balance of Great Britain, the services of the ship contributed largely to the economic development of the world, especially by distributing the products of the great agricultural countries such as Canada, Australia and Argentina, and in this way they built up new sources of foodstuffs and raw material for the British people, new markets for British manufactures, and new fields for the investment of British capital. The outstanding char acteristic of British shipping at the beginning of the 20th century was the size of its contribution to that pool of fluid tonnage on which all nations draw to cope with emergency demands, or with the seasonal fluctuation in volume of traffic as between route and route.
annual carrying-power of the remaining ships was reduced by delays arising from the frightful congestion of the ports, due to war demands, often carelessly made, on port labour and facilities. Neutral ships were frightened away from British ports by the sub marine campaign. As each crisis arose it was met ; first by the ship-owners alone, afterwards by directing authorities, culminating in the Ministry of Shipping, and working with and through ship ping organizations such as the Chamber of Shipping, the Liverpool Steam Ship Owners' Association and the Liner Conferences. Serv ices were readjusted to the new demands of trade; a large pro portion of the ships trading between foreign ports were brought back into the trade of Great Britain to take the place of those sunk or requisitioned for war purposes.
It was the crisis caused by the submarine campaign that first really brought home to the majority of the British people that, for about two-thirds of their annual consumption of food, and for the materials of their greatest industries, they depended on the labours of those who go down to the sea in ships, and on the enterprise and efficiency with which the ships were managed. The war brought home to them too, what manner of man the British merchant seaman is. Down to the end of the i 8th century, most foreign-going ships went armed as a defence against pirates and privateers, and the British merchant seaman, by whom in those days the navy itself was manned, had proved himself a fierce and effective fighter. With the suppression of piracy, and the abolition of privateering by the Declaration of Paris in 1856, the arming of merchantmen had practically ceased, and when the German submarines broke through the accepted canons of war at sea, the seamen found themselves exposed to a deadly attack, against which they had no means of defence or retaliation. Yet there was neither panic nor holding back. Men whose ships had been tor pedoed under them or blown up by mines, who had suffered hunger, thirst and cold in the long pull to land, signed on again, as a matter of course, for another voyage exposed to the same risks. When it became possible to arm them for their own de fence, they used their weapons with skill and spirit, and many a mercantile skipper showed how well he could manoeuvre a ship in action.