The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1919-04-18

capable Of carrying half Of II. n.t,o,a1 ,m,ort.
and exports.
ne USED to draw n picture of a theoretically
perfect balance in this important economic cues
toh- FOR the sake of illustrating his point.
Franklin would state that fair balance In the
snip business, could always be maintained IT, ware
houses. put half way across an ocean served as
points OF interchange for the overseas trade be-
tween Two nations One nation would take in its
own SHIPS all OF its goods for export and leave
them at the warehouse-this imaginary point In
the middle Of the sea. There the ship would load
up with goods from the second nation and haul
them back homs. Ships of the other nation would
follow the same program
Naturally enough midocean warehouses are Q
physical impossiDility. And two nations could
ever have anything like equal tonnage to ex-
change For all practical purposes, except in the
matter of framing policies, the Franklin scheme is
blackboard stuff. very useful in explaining the
theory Of foreign trade to a schooroom but of no
vital Importance to the ship-buding engineer or
foreign trader.
All Cannot Be Shipping Nations
Then the whole world cannot be guided by the
Franklin idea. Many nations are unable to get
into the shipping game seriously. They lack ma
terials for shipbullding, perhaps, or they lack
deep-water ports open the year around. Russia,
under the cZars made a 30O-year-ong fight for a
deep-water port open II months out of every year.
Switzerland has ports. Italy lacks steel and
coal for operating shipyards And the story
goes loSt nations Tor one reason another
keep out of the big shipping game on account of
natural obstacles.
In this very situation. what might be termed the
economic and political misfortunes of the smaller
nations work to the advantage of the bigger mari
time nations. helping their ship business.
Today, America and Great Britain have
tirely different policies the problem Of world
shipping. We are going into the game, according
to shipping experts here in Paris for the
peace conference, because II Is of vital Importance
for the future of America to own and operate
fleet big enough to carry so per of exports
and imports. Such program is almost manda-
tory for the future prosperity of the United States
We need merchant marine to complete al.
ready enormous industrial system. our chain of
big factories We need ships to haul our grain to
foreign lands to transport our materials We
must not face the future placing ourselves at the
mercy OF any other nations ships and shipping
interests. our shipping officials say.
In this war-just ended with the defeat of Ger
many-the whole world had concrete example
Of what ships mean to nation. Japan, by gain
Ing for a time the shipping supremacy in the Pa
cifc has been able to almost paralyze Chinese for
eign trade with America and boost japanese trade
with the United States by the simple expedient
OF operating Japanese~owned ships for the benefit
of Japan; a thing she had every right to do. There
not enough ships to go around-and the
japanese adopted the policy that Chinese trade
should suffer rather than Japanese
This condition will rapidly right itself; but sn
the meantime the Chinese had to suffer In silence.
There are dozens of other examples that ship
city for a1erica to go into the shipping business