Evening star., 1942-09-20

Donald Nelson, speaking at an indus
trial rally in Camden, N. j., last Sunday,
said that American war production has
been increased by $50 per cent since
Pearl Harbor and commented: THAT
is a good record, but not good enough"
On the following day, in transmit
ting to Congress his sixth quarterly
report on lease-lend operations. the
President emphasized the warning i'm
plicit in the words of the War Produc-
ton Boards chairman.
80 far" said Mr.. Roosevelt, "the
United States has little more than passed
the halfway mark toward maximum
possible war production. Not until we
have reached the maximum-and we
can do this only by stripping our civilian
economy to the bone-can our fighting
sured of the vastly greater quantities
OF weapons required to turn the tide"
AS indicated by the Presidents dis
satisfaction with the quantity of lease
lend supplies sent overseas, the prob
lem of domestic war production cannot
portation Happily for this country the
war will be won, or lost, on battlef1elds
far removed from the continental United
States.
For that reason, also, Donald Nelson
was forced severely to qualify his salts
faction with the fact that current war
production is three and one-haf times
! thn 1an ~
last December. The war will be fought
not with equipment piled up in storage
here, but with that proportion of it
which can be transported overseas.
Major strategy may call for a second
front in Western Europe; for progressive
recapture of japanese conquests in the
Southern Pacific; for seizure of the
southern Mediterranean coastline in
order to strike at Italy. On such stimu-
lating subjects the fancy Of the COM
mentators tends to concentrate. But
the determining issue for all our military
strategy is transportation. 1t is the
prosaic matter of shipping space which
will prove the final determinant in
this war.
Ship Construction Up 1,200T.
That being the case, it is encouraging
| to note that merchant ship construction
| in the United States has, since Pear
| Harbor, far exceeded the average wal
production increase of $50 per cent listed
| by Donald Nelson for industry as q
whole.
| During the month of December, 1941
only six ocean-going merchant vessels
were completed in American shipyardl
and delivered for service. During Au'
gust, 1912, there were IS such deliv
| cries. and it is a virtual certainty tha
| this number will be exceeded by sev-
eral units during September.
Thus the rate of completion Of carg'
ships has increased since Pearl Harbo
not by the $50 per cent average TO
American war industry on the whole, bu
approximately 12-fold. This 1900 pc
cent increase is more than three time
the general progress figure cited by Don
aid Nelson. And If the smaller percent
age gain seemed to the production chic
| good, though not good enough, it woult
/ at first glance appear that the advance
in ship construction should be regarded
as not merely excellent but also salts
factory even as measured against tn
emergency
Of course, deliveries Of finished ship
is a not wholly accurate measure of tn
advance made since Pearl Harbor in thi
field of war production. While only si
merchant vessels were actually com
pleted last December the records of tn
Maritime Commission show that durin
this month 20 such ships were launched
keels were laid for 80 more and con
tracts let for 80 others. There woul
today be nothing like the enormous in
crease in deliveries if the Maritime Com
mission had not laid the foundation
of its easily expandable shipbuildin
program long before war came.
BY any other standard of comparison
the joint achievement of the Martini
Commission and the shipbuilding in