the third (1895-1914/16) to the joint effects of the motor car and electricity. The
post-war upswing may be attributed to a combination of major innovations in the
chemical industries, aircraft and the electrical electronic industries
By their nature these long cycles are barely visible in everyday life and a certain
amount of imagination is needed to identify the cycles from the limited statistical
information available. For this reason alone the long cycle theory remains
controversial. What cannot be denied, and should not be ignored, is the technological
trend which has done so much to shape the shipping industry over the last
century.
Year by year the change is barely discernible, but over the twenty or thirty year
life of a merchant ship technical obsolescence dominates shipping economics. 4
For much of the last century changing technology has set the stage for shipping
cycles. In the fifty years to 1914 a downward spiral in freight rates was driven by
the increasing eficiency of merchant ships and the phasing out of sail. Similarly,
the fifty years
from 1945 to 1995 was dominated by the mechanization of the bulk
and liner shipping businesses through bigger ships and more efficient cargo handling
technology. Such trends are hardly discernable as changes from year to year,
but
cumulatively their consequences are
profound.