第一次大戦とイギリス海運業 : 不定期船業界の資本蓄積を中心に
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概要
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World War I had profound effects on the British shippin industry, above above all on tramp owners who were said to have owned about sixty percent of the total UK-registered steam tonnage prior to the war. This note analyses the effects of the war on capital accumulation of the tramp owners by breaking the post-WWI period into three sub-periods. The first sub-period, 1914-16, was the years of prosperity. Although the value of ships rapidly rose due to the shortage of new ready ships, this factor, along with others, pushed the freight rates to unprecedented levels, thereby inducing many new-comers into the tramp shipping in pursuit of large profits. The second sub-period, 1917-18, was the one of lean years. All but a few tramps were requisitioned by the Government at the fixed "Blue Book" charter rates, the rates which tramp owners found far from sufficient for covering the rising costs of running vessels. Some owners were pushed out of business, while others were absorbed by liner companies. The third sub-period, 1919-21, is characterized by a mixture of post-war boom and its collapse. The "apparent" shortage of tonnage and the prospect of unconditional decontrol gave rise to the most speculative boom in the history of the British shipping industry. The boom, howeves, was short-lived and not substantial. As soon as the freight market collapsed, many of the tramp owners, who were growing anew in the boom, were either forced to sell surplus vessels at a loss because the previous ship values could have only been justified by a continuance of higher freight rates of forced to be liquidated because cash reserves necessary for withstanding the depression had been depleted in the speculative buyings of vessels. When the boom was over, therefore, the tramp owners found themselves in the depths of financial difficulties. To make the matter worse, the conditions surrounding the British tramp changed drastically after the war. Under the pressure of an increasing surplus tonnage throughout the world, liner companies began to encroach in a large way on the field of bulk cargo, previously occupied by tramps. Moreover, the export of coal. which was the most important outward cargo of the British tramp, greatly diminished due to the development of alternative sources of coal supplies elsewhere as well as to the ever expanding use of the alternative energy, oil. In order to meet these changing conditions in an effective way, the British tramp owners should have ventured to launch into new enterprises and allocated their resources more properly Regrettably, however, they spent much money on the old-type vessels fitted only for the tranditional trades, in which shipowners of low-wage countries were increasingly gaining an advantage. Thus, the maladjustment in shipping investment at the critical turning-period left a heavy burden under which the British tramp industry continued to suffer throughout the inter-war years.
- 社会経済史学会の論文
- 1980-06-10