New-York tribune., 1920-12-22

rine it Is we'll also to consid.r The
other side of the question-the cost If
not having merchant marine. With
all OF the losses that Great Britain
suffered because of the war. her NOR
cnant marine is the instrument that
"lll enable her peop.e to recoup their
losses. And the same would be true
o1 US NJ
Need of a Merchant Marine
AS auNlllaries to our army and our
navy a merchant marine of our own
IS essential to our national safety.
It's possession should not be consid-
cred as dependent upon its cost; all
we should decide is whether we have
the ability to build, to own, to operate.
to officer and to man merchant ma ma
rine of our own; and, if we can an
swer affirmatively all these queries
then the answer should be, for mill
tary and naval purposes, we should
own one.
For commercial purposes we should
have merchant marine Of our own
A nation with foreign commerce an
rually exceeding in value $4,000 ,000,-
geo should not depend upon foreign
ships either to bring to it the foreign
products it requires or to carry to
Of the United States that other ma
tlons desire. Our rapidly increasing
surplus products admonsh US Of the
dangers of industrial unrest if we fail
to find, TO hold and to develop foreign
Il arkets for such surplus products. To
depend upon foreign ships to do this
Tor us is to invite commercial suicide
We must have the ships of our own,
the property OF our own people, those
concerned in their operation our own
citizens, then the cost of the marine
viii be the very least Of our problems.
No longer is it necessary for our
government to speculate upon whether
or not 1t costs more TO build ships in
thls country than 1t costs 10 build them
n other countries; no longer need the
comparative American and foreign cost
OF ship operation perplex the souls of
our national legislators-the govern
mcnt now knows, in minutcst detail,
the truth IN respect to all Of these
formerly moot matters. knowing
this the government is able to tell the
people the truth without recourse to
the views Of private shipbuilders and
shlpowners.
Subsidy or Discrimination
Whether we shall attempt, at a pos
sible annual expense of from S5O0O0,-
cur shipping in order to equalize con-
dltIcns OF competition between our own
shipowners and alien shipowners, or
whether we shall adopt the very simple
and inexpensive policy of our fore
fathers in placing a marine upon the
sea and keeping it there" should not
take US long to decide.
With q huge deficit facing US for
many years to come, to SUCCESS,
9 m of
funds annually for the upkeep Of our
ships upon the seas, when they can be
kept there at no expense to the gov
crnment merely by taxing imports in
foreign ships more than we tax those
brought in our own ships, and in col
locting higher tonnage dues from for
e,gn than from American ships, is
merely to arouse the people Of the
country to anger and to invoke hos
tility to our shipbuilders and our ship
owners, now happily latent among our
citizens.
For three quarters of century our
forcfathers pursued the Inexpensive
policy of creating by our laws pref
eTence for our own ships, with the re
suit that, despite every eXpedient in
the line of retaliation that the human
mind could devise, during all that long
period American ships carried an av-
crage Of four-tifths and foreign ships
carried an average Of one-ffth of our
foreign commerce. For my part, I
would much prefer foreion retaliation
and an American ship preferential pol
icy and 80 per cent of the carrying in
American ships for another three~quar-
tees Of a century, TO free trade in for
eign carrying and 10 per cent of the
carrying, which was our share under
free trade conditions during the half
centurH and more that followed the
close Of the Civil War.
What we need is courage and deter
Tnination n dealing with our shipping
problem, in order to maintain sue
cessful American merchant marine
(Thts ts the ninth or series Of articles
on the outlook for th~ nem merchant marine
IN to-morro'c's orrcle W. AuerW HART
nan presid"nt Of the American Ship and
fonpcrcc Corporation, uiN discuss the On
l'TefGt'onahtp among trodc, foreign banking
ara 8hiprttO)