SPECIAL MAY MEETING, 13 
occurred at the great conference which came to an end today certainly showed that altruism 
had very little consideration, and that human nature has reasserted itself very strongly. 
You have heard the address of our good friend Congressman Edmonds, and the words 
of encouragement which he has brought us as to the probable passage of the Mercantile Ma- 
rine Act of 1922, which most of us look upon as the salvation of the American merchant 
marine. It has always seemed astonishing that Americans, who pride themselves on being 
good business men and who believe in the protection of American industries, should have 
treated the merchant marine in the foreign trade as a Cinderella. Probably the difference 
between our attitude and that of Great Britain is due very largely to the difference 
between a continent of 3,000,000 square miles and an island of about 50,000. One cannot 
go very far in England in any direction without coming to the sea, whereas in our great 
expanse there are millions of people who have never seen the ocean. Conditions during the 
late war, however, brought home to our agriculturists and other inland dwellers the help- 
lessness of a country which depends upon foreign bottoms for transporting its cargoes, and 
it is extremely gratifying to know that at the present time the agriculturists have come out 
strongly in favor of protection to the merchant marine so as to insure an American fleet for 
carrying American products. 
The basic reason which calls for government help to insure the success of our merchant 
marine is the higher initial cost of our vessels and the higher cost of operation, both due to 
the higher scale of wages which obtains in this country. We have all been proud to think 
that the condition of the laboring man in America was better than in other countries, but it 
seems only fair to ask some appreciation of this fact by him, and some adequate return for 
this greater wage. It is a fact that the output per man in our industries is greater than 
the corresponding output in the countries with the lower wage, although this is due in part 
to a greater use of labor-saving appliances. There is little doubt that, if the wage earners 
would exert themselves to greater efficiency, the margin between costs abroad and costs here 
could be very much reduced. If the present difference in wages is to be maintained, it can 
only be as a result of greater efficiency by our people. This means that the labor leaders, 
instead of encouraging strikes and constant demands for higher wages irrespective of con- 
ditions of business, should turn their attention to encouraging their followers to give the 
best that is in them, so that not only will they receive the highest wages but will also deliver 
the highest output. 
Only recently an English engineer who was rewarded with a peerage for his wonderful 
work in the Great War in the supply of airplanes, Lord Weir, called attention in a lecture 
at Greenock on March 24 to this very point in connection with conditions in Great Britain. 
Wages in England as compared with those on the Continent have much the same relation 
as our wages compared to those of England. He called attention to the fact that if Great 
Britain is to continue prosperous and there is to be employment for the workers, one of two 
things is absolutely necessary—either more output for the existing wages or lower wages for 
the existing output. It is a very difficult problem which, in our case, as in that of nearly all 
other countries, has been immensely complicated by the conditions obtaining during the war, 
when wages were enormous and output per man was very low. However, “it is a condition 
and not a theory” that we have to face, and we, as the leaders in our line of work, must do our 
best to hasten a satisfactory solution. 
We had arranged with a distinguished member of the Society, Captain O’Donnell, to 
give us a paper on the “Operating Problems of the American Shipowner.” Captain O’Don- 
