The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-08-15
SHIPPING BOARD VICTIM OF GRAFT
Conditions Found to Be Es- pecially Bad In Buenos-
 Aires and River Platt
By Associated Press

| By Associated Press
 Buenos Aires, July S.-The United l States shipping board has been de- 1 frauded of many thousands of dollars | through overcharges which amount to | systematic fleecing of shipping board vessels in the river Plate trade. accord | ing to reports to the board by Capt.
 G. L. Garden, special representative ot
 the shipping board emergency fleet in 1 Buenos Aires.
 Captain Garden, accompanied by Cap-
 tain of Engineers L, C. Farwell, arrived here a month ago to take charge and
 protect the boards i2terests. When 1
 arrived here" he said to the Associated Press correspondent, ship chandlers repairmen and others connected with the ! shipping industry seemed to be in a gen
 eral agreement to mulct the shipping
 board vessels to the limit.
 "'The shipping board is rich,' they
 said. We will get what we can Ac-
 cordngly the board was charged for things not received and overcharged for | things received until it became so ob- vious that l was ordered to this port | to take charge In receiving my orders
 was told that while the board appre-
 ciated the fact that expenses of all sorts were high in Buenos Aires and Monte video, still it felt that there must be something wrong when their vessels paid l
 for butter.
 Tt seemed that the practice was, when a shipping board vessel appeared in the
 roads and signaled it's desire to enter, | for those who had hopes of selling the
 vessel supplies to prepare for pluck | ing of the golden goose. The result was | that when the vessel cleared, bills were presented to the steamship agents, and
 promptly paid, since it was shipping
 board money, for every conceivable item | at prices based on nothing except de- | sire to obtain easy money.
 | Our arrival put quick and effective | stop to all this. We now have all ship | ping board vessels calling at this port | report directly to us, we alone haVing 1 the right to authorize purchases Of sup plies or expenditures for repairs All re-
 pairs at present must be made accord l ing to specification and under bond Every bill must have my signature De- | fore it will be paid, and the result or | this has been a saving of as much as oo per cent on many items. Conditions TOT mery were so bad that I have even heard that in some cases food was l thrown overheard in order to create | shortage so that purchases could pc made"
 | During the first four weeks of the Su- pervsion provided by the new arrange ment it was officially estimated that saving for the shipping board, when
 means for the United States government
 of s5OO0O for food alone and s25,OO0 for | repairs was made. As a result of this campaign at least one arrest is expected when a certain ship arrives in New York.
 ] There are twenty-three lines under the shipping board which have vessels call I ing at ports in this Jurisdiction. There are on an average of twenty-two vessels | on hand at all times. The average cost l for maintaining these is from s1,5o0 to | s2OO0 each per day. Before the war an American vessel on the river Plate was l a curiosity.
 "Snce the shipping board had no of- , fees of its own to take charge of it's vessels in ports throughout the world, continued Captain Garden, it was usual | ly necessary to entrust the care of it's ships to established agencies Many CT
 these steAmship agents had already for years been the representatives of foreign and possibly competing lines. The re- | suit has been that in many cases Ameri- | can vessels have been held back while other ships were given the preference causing the expenses of American ships | to mount up through port charges and 1 lost time.
 'In all river Plate ports losses from this source have been very great, as well
  plies, repairs and so forth. There is one case on record where American ship was held up for months for repairs and charges totaling about $3oo0O were piled up against her. But we are seeing to it now that shipping board vessels get into port and get away again with out unnecessary delay. The saving to the shipping board from this attention undoubtedly will be several hundred f thoucand dollars annually.
 Agents who have the interests of other nationalities more at heart than Ameri- can are coming to learn that they are not entitled to more than a legitimate profit from American vessels and must handle them efficiently if they want American business"
 Captain Garden and his assistant Cap tain Farwell, are officers of the United States coast guard, detailed on shipping board service. During the war captain Garden was port captain of New Nork and had charge of loading more tha" 345, 900, 900 tons of high explosives, mak- ing a record it is said, of never having had an accident or lost a man.