ABSTRACT
Government intervention in shipping has been easy to obtain because shipping, like oil, is essential to national defence. This intervention has been used to intensify and not to allay the spirit of international competition. The vast superiority in size of the British fleet and the established position of England as the carrier nation, have until very recently concealed the growing threat of foreign competition. Subsidization was for long abhorrent to British shipowners, but the competition of foreign subsidized fleets has driven the industry to seek government aid. The fact that the exigencies of the War created the first Shipping Act, in 1917, is significant. It meant the recruitment of the merchant marine by the navy to serve in the defence of the country. At the end of the War the powers of the Shipping Board were extended by the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act, which gave the Board general supervision over all commercial shipping.
