328 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



The shipbuilding figures are much more up-to-date, 

 and break the record. During 1905 we built 1266 

 vessels of an aggregate total of 1,824,750 tons, this 

 output being 14,000 tons more than the previous 

 maximum in 1901. A tremendous amount of this 

 tonnage has been for foreigners, 21 '5 per cent, of the 

 total, so that we are engaged in forging the weapons 

 wherewith we may be fought in our own field. 



But within the last twenty-five years we have seen 

 a most formidable rival in shipping matters arise, which 

 has not only entered into keenest competition with us, 

 but has in many cases wrested from us whole lines of 

 trade in which we once were supreme. Not only so, 

 but this rival, Germany, which has built up the two 

 greatest shipping companies, has actually beaten us in 

 one most important matter, that of owning the fastest 

 passenger ships across the Atlantic Ocean. Our other 

 competitors, France, the United States, Scandinavia, 

 all put together do not press us so hardly as does 

 Germany, a country which so short a period ago 

 as a quarter of a century was scarcely worth our 

 consideration at all. But Germany's watchword is 

 thoroughness in all things, and while her internal 

 industries have made gigantic strides, it may safely be 

 said that no branch of her multifarious energies has 

 received such careful fostering, such minute attention, 

 as her shipping. While with us the shipping interest 

 is a matter of national life or death, in Germany it is, 

 however important, a side issue ; yet Germans, from the 

 emperor downwards, devote such energy to furthering 

 their shipping interests as should put us to shame if 

 we thought about the matter as we ought. Nothing 

 stranger in national affairs has ever been witnessed 



