Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-11-25

IL it hadn't been for this Shipping
Board fleet. If. therefore, they can
keep Congress busy discussing pos
sible variations of proposed methods
for wearing out these ships, instead
of enacting legislation that will en-
able Americans to buy these ships
and replace them with newer and
better craft as occasion may require,
they know that it is but a matter of
few years when government oper-
alton, however, conducted, will end
through lack of useful ships and our
merchant marine again will be Just
where it was before the World War
an inconsequential factor in for
eiGn trade. .
What 1t Has Cost Us
We need not so back a quarter OF
century to discover what our fail
ure to keep the sea has cost US. we
need not even turn to the World
War period when American pro-
ducers of cotton and grain lost SO
| many millions through lack of ships.
! We can turn to these years of peace,
when all countries are supposed to
| love us dearly and to recognize the
! tremendous sacrifices which we
made for them.
| TO deal with specific cases-in
| 1922, we found that our merchants
! were being charged an average OF
| $500 ton for the transportation
| of their products to South Africa,
market the value of which then was
very little known. This rate was
| from forty to fifty Der cent higher
than that charged for similar ocean
| transportation of like European
goods. The Shipping Board estah-
| lished South African services for the
! benefit of Americans, and freight
rates were soon reduced to about
: SO Ler ton. Now we have great
market for American goods in South
Africa, market taking almost
| everything from locomotives and
typewriters to grain products and
canned milk.
Not only does experience prove
| that whenever our competitors get
the opportunity, they charge all the
| traffic will bear, but where our
commerce includes goods similar to
! those which foreigners produce, they
are apt to put on more than the
! traffic will bear, that their home in
dustries may be benefited.
Proposed aids have been defeated.
Now let us analyZe what these SAY
ings's have cost the country.
We spent some four billion dollars
on merchant ships for the world
war. most of which ships never were
completed until the war was over
! That expenditure, to use the graphic
language of Senator Jones, is the
equivalent of a subsidy OF forty mil
lion dollars per year for one hundred
years. The interest on this marine
venture alone is about S15O, 000,O00
per year and there can be no end
to this interest burden because that
is on money expended and gone.
Now if either the Frye BILL or the
Roosevelt commission bill, had been
adopted, the maximum annual
charge would not have exceeded
S15, 0OO0 900. or one-tenth of this mere
annual interest charge now fixed up
on us and for which we'll have prac-
tically nothing to show when exist
ing government ships are worn out
or strapped. And we would have
had an ocean-going fleet privately
owned. 1t may be said this is water
over the dam. True, but is that any
reason for letting the dam so to
pieces?
At present the Shipping Board is
operating about one and one-half
million tons of freight ships. II
there were a law under which the
government aid of $500 per ton per
year, recommended by the Rose
welt Commission renort. was being