They mostly carried bulk cargoes between ports, or on time charter. Tramp companies were small, with cheap, simple ships, and each voyage was a separate venture. Only about half of them carried passengers. They moved on fixed schedules with high value cargoes that mostly changed out at each port. Liners were operated by large well-administered companies that were sensitive to competition. Trade types were in two general groups - Liner and Tramp. The Empire possessed 3888 oceangoing ships of over 1000 gross registered tons (GRT), comprising about 50 percent of the world total. The capital investment of £405 million in 1913 was about equal to that of two large European railway companies. Ship sinkings cause change, and are important, but most trade system disruption flows from the fact of attack, not from sinkings per se.īefore WWI, Imperial trade was carried out with surprisingly few resources. System efficiency loss comes from the fact of attack, more than from any other factor, because this forces the system to change in ways for which it was not designed. Attacks on shipping in 1914-45 impacted significantly on the efficiency of the system. Trade is a global entity, and the trade of the British Empire was a mutually interdependent subset of the global trade system. Its purpose is to move tonnage and volume at minimal capital and operating cost, while making sufficient profit to replace expended capital and resources and expand the infrastructure available. A trade system may be defined as carrying capacity used efficiently.
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