The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1924-09-17
SHIPS LOSE
! MONEY IN
TRADE
Very Few Able to Compete
With Foreign Craft Because
OF Latter's Lower Expense
By WILLIAM HARD.

By WILLIAM HARD.
For some eight years now we
Americans have been trying to 60
somewhere in shipping.
These articles endeavor to try
to find out where that some
where is likely to be.
in 1916. -
That act established our Ship
ping Board and ambitiously said
that it did so in order to encour-
age and develop and create "a
naval auxiliary and naval reserve
and a merchant marine to meet
the requirements Of the COM
merce of the United States"
We then, out of the war, &C
quired 1888 ships in the owner
ship of the Shipping Board.
1t Exceeded All Needs.
1t was a monstrous number,
enormously in excess of any number
needed for our foreign trade.
We since have sold a bit more
than a thousand of these ships.
The buyers OF them bought them
principally for use between Ameri-
can ports. That trade-the coast
wise trade-is reserved to American
vessels.
We also have scrapped some TWEEN
ty steel ships and have sold more
than two hundred wooden ships with
the agreement that they shall be
strapped.
Having done all this, we still have
left on our hands enough ships-in
tonnage-to carry all the commerce
Of the United States in foreign trade
both ways, coming and going.
Why then do we not do it?
OF course. it would be an alb
surdity to think of carrying 100
per cent. of our exports and 100
per cent of our imports under the
American flag.
Exports go somewhere, AMI i'm
ports come from somewhere. and
the people who receive our exports,
and the people who send us our i'm
orts have their own flags, their
own merchant marines, which they
wish to support.
Our utmost really) of common
sense is to wish to carry half of our
imports and half of our exports
half of our own American foreign
trade.
We do not now carry half of it.
For a while, just after the war,
we seemed to be quite well headed
toward that accomplishment.
Now we are sinking away from it.
We are carrying now only about
% per cent of our exports and about
Is per cent of our imports.
If our present Governmental poll
cies continue, we shall probably
carry less than those percentages
next year.
We are going down, not up.
Why is this?
We have the ships. We have hun.
dreds of them not working. We
have hundreds of them laid up
We have more ships, more Govern.
ment ships, Laid up" than we have
in service.
Why do we not take a hundred
of these laid up" ships and put
them into service?
Answer Is Simple.
Considering that the 315 Govern.
ment ships which we are now
operating in foreign trade, together
with the twenty-six American pri-
vate ships now operating in foreign
trade, give us the carrying of some
~ per cent of our total American
foreign trade. why do we not put
on a hundred more Government
ships and raise the percentage
to so?
The answer is a simple one
American ships in foreign trade,
except in very special circum.
stances, lose money.
The reason for that fact will be
analysed later.
The present point is that the fact
exists.
1t follows that whenever the
shipping Board puts another Gov.
eminent ship into operation il takes
another loss-almost always.
II then follows that it thereupon
needs additional money in appro.
pr1ations from Congress.
The Budget Bureau, however,
ooes not like to ask for those ad
ditional appropriations.
Out For Economy.
On the contrary it wishes to ask
and it proposes to ask-for small.
or appropriations for the Shipping
Board.
1t is out for economy.
The Shipping Board meanwhile is
out for increasing the percentage
OF American commerce carried in
American vessels.
The two things today are diamet.
really inconsistent.
American ships In mass are, and
must be, at this time. financially
losing ventures.
Private capital refuses to endure
that loss.
We then have to ask:
Is 1t worth while, nationally, to
have a merchant marine carrying
half our commerce?
Is 1t enough worth while to
Justify us in paying for the i'm.
mediate financial Joss of 1t out Of
our national public treasury?
That is what the problem comes
down to.
First, however, let us see lust
why 1t is that American ships in
mass lose money.
Tomorrow: Our Handicaua.l
copyright, 1894, by Currant X.