OPERATING PROBLEMS OF THE AMERICAN SHIPOWNER. 21 
dicate, so high a percentage would not be found at all American ports, and as under present 
inducements some of our seamen are certain to desert, it would be difficult to maintain the 
required percentage in the ports of foreign countries. To develop what is apparently ex- 
pected by Congress and the country in the form of an unlicensed seagoing personnel, the 
greater part American, will require close study and patient effort on the part of owners and 
operators of steamers in the merchant marine, and could best be obtained through a system of 
naval reserve training. 
In the La Follette seamen’s law are presented not a few difficult problems. This act was 
passed with the assumption that it would provide freedom—so-called—for seamen. The 
practical result, however, has been the lessening of discipline on American ships as reported 
by ships’ officers and United States consular agents. 
Our steamboat inspection laws and rules and other navigation laws and regulations were 
made the object of a very careful study more than two years ago by a committee of mari- 
time men established by authority of the Shipping Board—a committee of which Mr. P. A. 
S. Franklin was the chairman. Mr. Alfred Gilbert Smith was chairman of the Sub-Commit- 
tee on Construction and Inspection, and Mr. J. Parker Kirlin was chairman of the Sub- 
Committee on Personnel and legal adviser to the committee. 
As is known to most of us, that committee completed its deliberations and presented its 
report to the Shipping Board two years ago, and the Legal Division of the Shipping Board 
is now engaged in recodifying and consolidating the navigation laws in accordance with the 
committee’s report. I can do no better by way of indicating what ought to be done to cure 
the unjust or obsolete features of our maritime laws and rules than by summarizing the recom- 
mendations of this committee as this report was recently released to the press by the United 
States Shipping Board. 
SUMMARY OF REPORT OF NAVIGATION LAWS COMMITTEE. 
It was found that our navigation laws are scattered through a large number of volumes 
of statutes and regulations passed at different times, and in many cases amendments have 
been enacted with clauses repealing acts and parts of acts inconsistent therewith, making a 
comparative study of the various statutes and regulations necessary in order to determine just 
what the law or regulation is on any particular subject. It was found also that authority 
to make regulations which were to have the force of law and the responsibility for enforcing 
the laws were scattered among a number of boards and bureaus in different departments of 
the Government. The committee considered that next in importance to the recodification of 
the law was the consolidation of responsibility for enforcement in a single department. 
When a number of statutes must be considered in order to obtain the law on a particular 
point, the average layman is bound to become confused, and this condition tends to create 
criticism which leads to a popular misconception of the facts. 
In comparison, the British navigation laws are contained in a single shipping act en- 
titled “The Merchant Shipping Act,” which is a maritime code that is very clear and simple 
of interpretation. The administration of this Act is reposed in a single department of the 
government, namely, the Board of Trade. The enforcement of the laws affecting shipping 
is carried out through a single bureau, and this bureau, known as the Marine Department, is 
the only one with which British shipowners need concern themselves. Obviously, therefore, 
the enforcement of the navigation laws under such a system is stripped of the confusion and 
