Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-29
WE CAN'T ESCAPE
A SHIPPING SUBSIDY
Whether the Government Operates the New
Merchant Fleet After the War
or Sells II TO Private Concerns

from them after the war.
Mr.. Hurley told the South American
diplomatists the other day that the ships
are to be operated for the benefit of the
whole world when peace comes. As he
said, the ships are intended primarily to
serve civilization in the great war emer-
gency. but "they will serve civilization
as we'll in the enduring peace that will
be born out of the victory of the Allies
and America"
The question Immediately arises in the
mind of every one familiar with the
decline of the American merchant marine
and with the recent legislation govern
ing the employment Of seamen: HoW IS
this great feet to be operated prottnbiy
in times Of pedce'
Its first cost. we know, is enormous.
The ships are being built regardless of
expense. So much money will be in
vested in them that no private corpora
ticn can take them over at cost price and
operate them proftably. Neither can the
Government do it. We are confronted,
then, with the fact that when considered
as instruments for peace-time commerce
these ships have been built with the aid
of an enormous public subvention sub
vention SO great that the sums which the
British Government has paid to the
Cunard Company to enable it to build
great passenger ships becomes triAing.
The nation must decide. therefore,
whether these ships built at public ex-
pense are to be operated by the shipping
board, as a bureau of the Government. in
competition with privately owned ships,
or whether they are to be sold or leased
to private corporations. If the Govern
ment operates them and charges such
freight and passenger rates as will
enable them to compete with the subsidy
fed ships of Great Britain, France and
Germany, to say nothing of Spain, Italy,
Holland and the Scandinavian States,
there will be an annual deficit to be met
out of taxation. IT is impossible to
escape the conclusion that the money
paid to meet this deficit would be really
subsidy, however great an effort might
be made to create the impression that it
was something else.
And such a system of operating steam
ships under the American flag 1vould
drive every privately owned American
ship from the ocean.
But if the ships are sold or leased to
private companies at a figure which
would make it possible for the purchaser
or lessee to hope for profit we would be
unable to compete with the Government
assisted shipping of other nations.
1t is impossible to find shipping man
in the. country who will admit that the
new merchant fleet can be operated in
peace times without Government aid of
some kind. Lack of Government aid is
what forced our flag from the seas. We
were willing to protect other industries
by tariff, but it has been impossible to
bring Congress to see the Importance of
doing anything to protect our ocean car
rers. Half-hearted experiments have
been made, but they did not go far
enough.
What happens was shown by the Con-
gressonal Commission on the Merchant
Marine when it reported, in 1905, that we
attempted to hold trade on the Pacific by
paying a steamship company less than
$4,000 a year for carrying the mails
while Japanese steamships receiving
100000 a year from their Government
were running on the same routes. Japan
today controls the carrying trade of the
Pacific. A few years ago an American
vainly sought aid from Washington for
a steamship line to run along the west
ern coast of South America. Great
| Britain saw the commercial advantages
of such a line to her and established it
with the aid of subsidy. And yet we
wondered why our merchant marine was
disappearing!
Mr. Sehwab said at luncheon in this
city few weeks ago that he was in
favor of progressively decreasing sub
sidy to make it possible to operate the
new ships after the war. But Mr..
Schwab is Republican and believer
in the protective tariff, it may be argued.
Yet Mr.. Schwab is first of all business
man of Uide experience, Whose judgment
on What is necessary to make q business
enterprise successful is north the opin-
| ion of whole roomful of theorists. Mr..
Schwab, of course, assumed that the
ships were to BE operated by private cor
porations.
If, however, we are to have Govern
ment operation Of steamship lines, along
with Government operation of the rail-
roads and the telephone and the tele-
graph lines, the subsidy question takes
care of itself, for subsidies will have to
be paid out of the public treasury or the
ships will have to 60 out of business and
be sold to whatever foreigners will buy