About one-third of the tonnage is occupied in ferry and other daily services which are not maintained exclusively for the purpose of carrying cargo. In the remaining trades almost all incoming ships carry cargoes, whilst over one-half of the outward bound steamer tonnage and four-fifths of the sailing ship tonnage are in ballast. This is a consequence of Danish trading conditions, great quantities of voluminous goods being imported, whilst the export to a great extent consists of manufactured products. Almost one half of the incoming cargo consists of coal from England, of which 60 per cent. is carried by Danish ships. Among the other staple freights of Danish vessels may be mentioned feeding stuffs im ported from North and South America, and oil-seeds from the Far East. Some of these latter cargoes are, however, discharged in neighbouring countries. In the trade with Germany, Sweden and Norway, which to a great extent is carried on by means of sailing vessels, Danish ships take a much smaller part. The heavy exports af agricultural produce to England are for the most part carried by Danish ships, but only a few vessels with frequent sailings are engaged in these services. The extensive exportation of cement is of great importance to Danish shipping, as it provides an outward cargo for the ships which trade with overseas countries.

DANISH SHIPS IN FOREIGN TRADE

In the trade between Denmark and other countries, 5 million tons of cargo out of a total of 12 millions are carried by Danish vessels. Danish merchant vessels also take an important part in the international carrying trade which does not touch at Denmark. In 1924, Danish ships carried 6.2 millions tons of goods between foreign countries. The most important centres of this trade are the North Sea and Baltic ports, where coal and timber cargoes respectively are loaded. A very large amount of cargo is carried between the two regions, sometimes in connection with intermediate trade with Danish ports. The coal and timber trade comprises about two-thirds of the total carrying trade. The remainder is very varied indeed, and covers all waters in every part of the world. Some of it is in the form of regular liner services or round voyages; besides carrying cargo between foreign ports, the ships thus also carry goods to and

from Danish ports. There are, for instance, lines to the most distant countries, such as South America and the Far East, which demand a very efficient management.

GROSS EARNINGS FROM FOREIGN SHIPPING FREIGHTS In the traffic between Denmark and other countries, and in the purely foreign trade, the Danish mercantile marine during the past few years has earned about 250 million kroner annually in gross freights, of which half came from the purely foreign trade. The figure naturally fluctuated greatly during the war and in the years immediately afterwards, but, despite all difficulties, Denmark had considerable revenues from her shipping in these years, so that it was possible to make up for the losses suffered by the fleet through confiscations and shipwrecks, especially in the dangerous North Sea trade. Having regard to the political situation of Denmark during the war, great efforts were made to maintain the exports of agricultural produce, in spite of all risks, as far as was compatible with the interruption of supplies for agriculture and the consequent reduction of the agricultural output.

The State of Denmark promotes the shipping trade in various ways: by grants to schools of navigation, by maintaining pilot, light, marking, and life-saving services, by the construction and working of harbours and by grants to the same.

The light service consists of 146 light-houses, 14 light-vessels and 51 light-buoys. At 26 of the light-houses and on all the lightvessels, there are fog signalling apparatus.

The life-saving service is in active function about twenty times a year and saves annually about 150 lives. Most of the life-saving is now done by means of lifeboats. There are annually about 100 strandings round the Danish coasts and the inner Danish waters, but only a minority of these involve shipwreck.

According to the official Danish ship register, Danmarks Skibsliste, there were at the end of 1925 the following steam and motor shipping firms with fleets of more than 20,000 gross register tons each:

COMMUNICATIONS

THE PORTS

Most of the Danish provincial towns have harbours, and there are, besides, in many places outside the towns, harbours or piers. Whilst most of the harbours outside the boroughs are private and most of the borough ports municipal, the State owns the ports of Elsinore, the Scaw, Frederikshavn, and Esbjerg, as well as some fishing harhours. The Port of Copenhagen is an independent institution, in the management of which are representatives of the Government, Parliament, the Corporation and the large trade organizations. The Free Port of Copenhagen is owned by the Copenhagen Harbour Authorities, but is worked by a joint stock company, which has provided it with warehouses, cranes, etc.

The water area of the Port of Copenhagen is 392.1 hectares, and the basins have a depth of up to 10 metres, while the length of quays and wharves is 29,296 metres. The water area of the Free Port is 34.2 hectares with a depth of up to 9.5 metres and 5,610 metres quays and wharves. The Free Port has contributed greatly towards the rising importance of Denmark as an emporium of the trade with the Baltic countries.

In all about 15,600 ships arrived at Copenhagen in 1925, totalling about 4,700,000 net register tons. The total quantity of goods discharged and loaded was about 4.9 million tons, whilst at all the provincial ports there arrived 70,900 ships, with a total of 9,030,000 net register tons, and a total quantity of goods discharged and loaded of about 9.8 million tons.

The traffic in 1925 at some of the biggest Danish ports is shown by the following:

Goods discharged

In the financial year of 1923-24 (April 1, 1923,-March 31, 1924) the current receipts of the harbours were as follows:

The receipts of the Copenhagen Free Port in 1923 included: pier dues 0.8 mill. kroner, rent 1.0 mill. kroner, warehouse dues 0.9 mill. kroner.

For all the ports (including the Free Port and the steam ferry harbours), the receipts from pier and harbour dues in the financial year of 1923-24 were 16.7 million kroner.

STEAM FERRIES AND RAILWAYS

The main communications of Denmark with foreign countries are: with Germany the Copenhagen-Gedser route with a steam ferry passage for passengers and goods trucks from Gedser to Warnemünde, whilst the communication by land is via Padborg, in North Slesvig. With England and France the main lines of communication are the regular daily steam ship services from Esbjerg, while with Sweden the lines of communication are the steam ferry services Copenhagen-Malmö and Elsinore-Helsingborg. The latter route is also one of the main lines of communication with Norway. There are also regular services to Norway and Sweden from Frederikshavn.

There are about 5,000 kilometres of railway in Denmark, of which about 2,400 belong to the State, while about 2,600 (mostly branch lines of purely local importance) are run privately. The relative proportion of State and private railways in Denmark has, as a matter of fact, constantly changed. In the years about 1900, many private lines were constructed, and since 1916 there have been more private than State lines. The expression private lines is, however, not a very apt one for these; though formally they are run by private companies, nearly all the shares belong to the State and the towns, and thus hardly any free pri