During the years 1871, 1872, and 1873 the output from the Clyde yards averaged 50 per cent. of the total shipping produced throughout the United Kingdom. That high proportion fell for the years 1874, 1875, and 1876 to as low as 37½ per cent. In 1882 the Clyde’s contribution to the grand total did not exceed 32½ per cent., so that in one decade the premier shipbuilding centre has fallen from the proud position of producing half the total shipping built within the United Kingdom to that of turning out less than one-third. Mr William Denny, dealing with this subject in a paper on the “Industries of Scotland,” read before the Philosophical Society of Dumbarton, in December, 1878, attributed the then condition of affairs with regard to the tonnage output of the Clyde to the keen competition of the builders on the North-East Coast of England, who managed to produce their favourite type of heavy-carrying, slow-speed steamers at very much less cost than could be done on the Clyde. Their success in this he attributed to four causes—1st, to the enterprise of the small shipowners and the general public on the North-East Coast of England in supplying capital for steamers of this kind; 2nd, to the great cheapness of iron in that district; 3rd, to the long hours worked, enabling the shipbuilding plant to be more profitably employed, and to the great development of piece-work; 4th, to the fact that all the builders being engaged upon work of the same class, the price of which could be measured per ton of dead-weight carried, or per ton gross, and per nominal horse-power, they were able easily to compare the efficiency of each other’s yard in point of production, and by that means a keen competition was produced amongst each other. On the Clyde the great variety and frequent speciality of the work prevented any such common measure of prices existing. This way of accounting for the altered relative positions of the chief shipbuilding centres was doubtless at that time the correct one, and to a large extent it still holds true. The productiveness of the North-East Coast ports has in no way declined since, notwithstanding that a larger number of the higher class passenger ships which have long been so much a Clyde speciality are now being constructed there. But the number of yards everywhere have increased in a higher ratio than on the Clyde, and consequently the aggregate of new shipping produced annually in the United Kingdom is made up of a greater number of separate contributions. That this is mainly the reason of the present position of the Clyde relatively to the whole United Kingdom is proved by the figures contained in the accompanying table, which show, amongst other things, that the ratio of tonnage produced by each of the principal districts to the total produced by the whole of them, has not very much altered during the past six years, or since Mr Denny spoke on the subject. If anything, indeed, the Clyde shows in this