Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-02-19
OFFICIALS DISAGREE ON ADvISAbILITY OF
 SELLING HUN SHIPS
Ship Board Chairman FayOrs , Sale, Assistant Opposes
 Plan
REJECTION OF BIDS IS
 RECOMMENDED, PAYNE
But Official Declares Ultimate Dis posal of German Vessels is Ad- visable Because of Cost of
 Repairing Them

Oplnlon as to the advlSa bility of the immediate sale of the 30 former Ger man passenger liners, recently offer ed by the shipping board were pre-. sented to the senate commerce com mittee today by members of the board
 Chairman Payne told the commit. tee the reconditioning of the vessels for passenger service would cost more than S75,000,OOO and offered a resolution approved by three of the four members of the board request ing authority to sell them. All bids recently received have been re- jected, he said.
 Vice Chairman Stevens of the board, on the other hand, said that the vessels should not be sold at this time as their true valuation had never been worked out. He urged that the vessels be reconditioned be- fore their sale. Estimates of the avlue of the vessels received by the board, he said, had been made with depreciation charge of five per cent while only 1-2 per cent should thus be charged off. He placed the value of the fleet at nearly $75,- 100000.
 Opposing the immediate sale of the liners because of the uncertainty as to their valuation, MT. Stevens said the public was entitled to know whether hte fleet was being offered at fair prices. More than money was involved, he added, and the transfer of the ships should not be smade un- til it was known that the best in- terests of the government were be- ing served.
 Commissioner Stevens will be heard again by the committee tomor- row. Chairman Jones stating that in view of the rejection of the bid by the board, the question of the sale did not call for immediate &C., tion by the committee.
 Rejection of all bids received for ths, ships asas reco4l nended by Chair- man Payne of the board who asked authority to renew negotiations for sale of the vessels for operation un- der the American flag.
 The boards recommendations was contained in the following resolu- tion submitted to the committee:
 Resolved, That with the report submitting the bids to the senate and house committees, the board states that it proposes to take the following action:
 "The board believes that in view of the uncertainty as to whether the sales of the ex-German ships would actually be made, the bids received are much less than can be obtained by further negotiations.
 Resolved, That the bids received on the 20th of January in response to the advertisement for sealed bids and those received at the public auc- tion held on the 18th and 18th in stant be and the same are hereby re- jected and that the checks of the bid ders be returned.
 Resolved, further, That the sales division be and it is hereby instruct ed to negotiate further for the sale of the said ex-German passenger ships on the terms heretofore an- nounced in the original advertise lnent: That is,
 "(al That they be sold to Ameri- can firms, corporations or persons for use under the American flag.
 "(b) And offered with reference to the routes or services established by the board and that each negotia- tion, when the highest price possi- ble is reached be reported to the board for it's action"
 The resolution was embodied in a statement which MT. Payne read to the committee. He recalled that the board had sold 188 ships in ac- cord with it's policy to dispose of the fleet to American citizens for operation under the American flag and that IS former German cargo vessels were included in this num- Der. The price received was $93,- 545,947.
 Chairman Payne said if congress desired to change this policy to pub lie ownership of ships, the passenger liners should not be sold and con- gress should direct the board to spend the $75,000.000 estimated as necessary to convert them from troops to passenger vessels.
 Ut should be understood" he said, "that the ships, whether own. ed by the government or by private capital, must in either case be oper- ated by the shipping companies which are bidding for the ships. The government has no adequate organi. zation for the direct operation o1 ships.
 "If the government continues to be the owner. it must pay the operators fixed fee and commission upor receipt and take whatever profit re. mains or if no profit remains, must bear all the losses" The chairman said that in accord with the joint resolution of con gress, under which the ships wer, taken over, naval board had ap praised the eraft and that the price! at which the board could sell nov ,, were substantially in excess of thu appraised value.
 Mir. Payne said passenger ship are scarce and building prices high but these conditions might chang, and the value of the ships be core spondingly lessened.
 of we proceed to re-condition tn, ships for passenger use," continued l the chairman, "it will take from si, to 12 months to put them into ser vice. Our conviction is that VI l will not hereafter be able to sel the ships for the coat Of re-condi tioninG plus the price which we cal nov tell. !" .