单项选择题

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. 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. Unlike the rest of British industry, ship-owners invested big. In the early 1960s, the shipping companies made full use of government grants and tax concessions. Between 1966 and 1976, British shipping lines invested at a rate of over ￡ 1 million a day. By the early 1970s, it seemed that, somewhere in the world, a new British ship was being launched every week. The result is that Britain has a very modern fleet: the average age of our merchant ships is only six years, and over half the fleet is under five years old. For some time now, British shipping managers have stayed ahead of the competition by investing in the most sophisticated ships. The other major factor which has played a key role in the dominance of the British merchant navy is an institution invented by the British well over 100 years ago: the ’’conference’’. In the middle of the 19th century, competition between sailing-ships and steamships became cut-throat, and price-cutting ruined many long-established companies. So the ship-owners got together to establish a more settled system, and they set up a system of price fixing. In other words, every possible type of cargo had a price, which all owners agreed to charge. It was, in fact, a cartel, though the British shipowners gave it the more dignified name of a ’’conference’’. The system has certainly stood the test of time. Today, there are about 300 conferences governing the trade-routes of the world, and the British still play a major role. By reducing competition, shipping conferences have taken some of the risk out of the dodgy (不定的) business of moving goods by sea. They make it harder, perhaps, to make a big killing in good times, because you have to share the trade with other conference members. But they make it easier to weather the bad times, because there is no mad, competitive scramble for the available trade. From the passage, we know that__________.