In all the previous centuries she possessed no marked superiority as a shipowning and sea faring community, and at the time of the Free Trade revolution (1846) she might only with some doubt be placed first among the mercantile maritime powers. She was then making no marked progress in comparison with other na tions, and in some respects was declining. For example, although after the great war in 1815 the shipping tonnage of the United States was not half that of the United Kingdom, in 1850 the American mercantile marine had grown to be very nearly equal to that of England in total tonnage, if coast and lake and river steamers be included, and greatly exceeded it in efficiency, for it included more than half a million tons of steam shipping against less than 200,000 tons of British shipping of the same class. Al though the tonnage of all American ships regis tered for oversea (foreign) trade was at that time only about one-third of that of Great Britain, it was superior in quality, and was in creasing with greater rapidity. The Americans excelled in the speed, efficiency, and beauty of their sailing ships, and the celebrated "Baltimore Clippers" and "American Liners" almost menop cilized the carrying trade between Great Britain and the United States. In the middle of the 19th century it may be said that Great Britain and the United States were worthy and well-matched rivals in the race for leadership upon the ocean.
It is an interesting question to ask what are the causes to which this modern phenomenon, the supremacy of Great Britain in the trades of building, manning, and operating ships, is to be attributed; and especially those which have led to the decline in the mercantile marine of the United States registered for foreign trade, al most to the point of extinction. It would be erroneous to attribute this commercial revolu tion to any one cause. The substitution of steam for sailing ships does does not appear to have been of any particular advantage to Great Britain, for during the first 30 years of the ex istence of sea-going steamships America kept the lead in this class of shipping, and her en gineers contributed largely to the earlier de velopment of the marine engine. The later sub stitution of iron and steel for wood as the ma terial for the construction of ships undoubtedly gave a great temporary advantage to England, which was at that time and remained for many years the largest and cheapest producing country of iron and steel, but it does not explain the fact that while the production of iron and steel in America now greatly exceeds that of the United Kingdom, this country has not been able to regain any considerable portion of the trade of building and operating ships for international commerce. Undoubtedly the American war had a disastrous temporary effect upon American shipping, shown by the decrease in the tonnage of ships registered for oversea trade from 2, 546,237 tons in 1860 to 1,516,800 tons in 1870. The principal explanation of this phenomenon is undoubtedly to be found in the opposite fiscal policies pursued by the two countries. It would not be proper in this place to enter into an argument as to the general results of the British policy of free trade, and the American policy of protection upon the two countries, but it is a fact admitted alike by freetraders and protectionists, that the control of this par ticular trade of international shipowning and shipbuilding has been determined by their mercantile policy. (See GREAT Barr — FREE
TRADE). The growth of the shipping supremacy of Great Britain, a supremacy becoming more marked each year, dates from the adoption of the policy of free imports in the years 1840-50, coupled with the abolition of the Navigation Laws in 1849. The process of the absorption of international shipping by British shipowners has undoubtedly been assisted by the protection policy of other nations. By restricting their im portation of British material goods, the inexor able economic law which compels each trading nation to pay its debts and balance its inter national accounts, has rendered it more con venient for Great Britain to pay for her great imports of food and raw material to the nations which refused her cotton goods or her iron, in the form of shipping services, which form at the present time the largest of British exports. The result has been that while the total volume of British trade amounts to not more than one seventh of the trade of the world, British ships carry about one-half of the trade of the world. The volume of purely foreign trade, that is of trade between foreign port and for eign port — trade which does not touch the ports of the United Kingdom, carried by British ships — largely exceeds that of the direct trade to and from British ports. In contrast, the gradual decline of the American trade is well set out in a. statistical table prepared by Mr. Meikle, Secretary of the Seattle Chamber of Com merce, and published in the report of the Merchant Marine Commission at Washington in 1905. It showed that in the year 1821 the percentage of the import and export trade of the United States carried in American bottoms was 88.7. This proportion, which remained fairly steady until 1850, had shrunk in 1860 to 72.5 per cent. From that year onward the de cline became increasingly rapid until in 1900 the percentage carried in American bottoms was only 9.2. In 1914 British shipping employed 295,652 men and boys. Of these 212,640 were British, 31,396 foreigners and 51,616 Lascars. Of the foreign tonnage (61,429,000 tons) en tered and cleared at British ports in 1914, Ger many had nearly 11,000,000; France, 4,759,000; Russia, 1,675,000; United States, 1,548,000 and Japan, 682.000.
The total loss of merchant shipping to the United Kingdom from the outbreak of war to 31 Aug. 1918 was 8,761,368 gross tons, of which 4,544,195 gross tons were replaced by new con struction during the same period, making a net loss of 4,217,173 gross tons —about one-fifth of the British mercantile marine. Shipping cap tured from the enemy amounted to about 800,000 tons.
Lindsay, 'History of Mer chant Shipping) ; 'Englische Handels-Politik' ; Leone Levi, 'History of British 'Annual Statements of Navigation and Ship ping of the United Kingdom) ; (Annual Tables Showing the Progress of Merchant Shipping in the United Kingdom and the Principal Mari time ; of the Commission on the Development of the American Merchant Marine) (Washington 1905).