Britannia Rues the Waves
大不列颠望洋兴叹
Andrew Neil
安德鲁·尼尔
Britain's merchant navy seldom grabs the headlines these days; it is almost a forgotten industry.
英国商船队的大名如今已很少见诸报纸上的大字标题，它已几乎被人们遗忘。
Yet shipping is the essential lifeline for the nation's economy. Ninety-nine percent of our trade in and out of the country goes by ship—and over half of it in British ships.
然而，海运业今天依然是英国经济的主要命脉，我国的内外贸易商品99%要靠海洋运输--其中一大半是通过英国商船运输。
Shipping is also a significant British success story. It earns over 1000 million a year in foreign exchange earnings: without our merchant fleet, the balance of payments would be permanently in deficit, despite North Sea oil.
海运业在英国占有举足轻重的地位，是个兴旺发达的行业，它一年可赚取10亿多英镑的外汇。如果没有我们的商业船队，那么，就算有北海的石油，我国的收支还会是永远的赤字。
But ,today this vital British industry is more in peril than ever before. On almost all the major sea routes of the world, the British fleet risks being elbowed out by stiff foreign competition.
然而，如今英国的这一至关重要的产业正面临着空前严重的危机。几乎在世界上所有的主要航海线上，英国商业船队都有被强劲的外国竞争对手挤开的危险。
The threat comes from two main directions: from the Russians and the Eastern bloc countries who are now in the middle of a massive expansion of their merchant navies, and carving their way into the international shipping trade by severely undercutting Western shipping compaines;
威胁主要来自两个方面：其一是苏联及东欧集团各国，它们正大力扩充自己的商业船队，并通过大幅度压低价格同西方海运公司竞争的手段挤进国际海运界;
and from the merchant fleets of the developing nations, who are bent on taking over the lion's share of the trade between Europe and Africa, Asia and the Far East-routes in which Britain has a bib stake.
其二是发展中国家的商船队，它们正努力要从对英国利害攸关的几条航线--欧洲至亚洲、亚洲至远东等航线上夺走大部分生意。
Today, the British fleet no longer dominates the high seas: our share of the world's merchant fleet has fallen from 40 per cent to around eight per cent.
今天，大不列颠的商业船队再也不是海上霸王了：我们在世界商船总量中所占的比重已由原来的40%降到现在的大约8%。
But, in terms of tonnage, the British merchant navy has continued to expand, it can now carry over two-thirds more than it could in 1914, and, almost alone among our traditional industries, shipping has remained a major success story.
不过，就商业船只的总吨位而言，英国商业船队仍保持着继续扩展的势态，其装载总量比起1914年已增加2/3以上。在我国的传统产业258 中，几乎还只有海运业至今依然保持着常盛不衰的记录。