HOW CAN AMERICAN SHIPS COMPETE SUCCESSFULLY WITH FOREIGN 



SHIPS? 



By Winthrop L. Marvin, Esq., Associate. 



[Read at the twenty-ninth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held 



in New York, November 17 and 18, 1921.] 



How can American ships compete successfully with foreign ships? It is a far-reaching 

 question that is stated in these words, a question that goes right to the root of the life of 

 our present-day merchant marine. For unless American ships can compete successfully with 

 the ships of foreign nations, which still manage to dominate our own overseas carrying, 

 there can be no future for ocean shipbuilding and navigation under the American flag. 



Therefore this question is one of as direct personal interest to naval a,rchitects and 

 marine engineers of all grades and ratings in their profession as it is to the shipowners and 

 managers themselves. The future livelihood and success of thousands of energetic and ambi- 

 tious Americans hang upon a right solution of the problem of the ship in service. 



Three main causes well known to men of our maritime industry were responsible for the 

 inability of successful competition under the American flag with foreign ocean shipping pre- 

 vious to the great war. 



For more than a hundred years the privilege of wearing American colors had as a gen- 

 eral policy been reserved to ships of American construction. Coupled with this reservation, 

 in the earlier years of our national life, was a vigorous national policy of encouragement to 

 American ships — the discriminating duty policy, so called — which absolutely guaranteed to 

 these ships a strong preference in employment. Under this policy, not completely abandoned 

 until 1850 against our chief competitor. Great Britain, the requirement that American ships 

 must be built solely in American yards was by no means an actual handicap. The building 

 of wooden-hulled sail ships for a hundred and fifty years before the founding of our Federal 

 Government had been a firmly established and successful industry in North America. Mate- 

 rials were abundant and relatively cheap, and the skill of our builders was unsurpassed — 

 indeed unequalled. No American merchants of that era desired to purchase or use foreign- 

 built ships, for there was generally no advantage in securing vessels from abroad. 



While wooden sail ships were carrying the commerce of the world, this requirement that 

 vessels of the United States should be American built was a just and prudent policy for the 

 republic. This policy was not substantially weakened or abandoned until the Panama Canal 

 Act of August 24, 1912, which for the first time in a general measure permitted the registry 

 of foreign-built vessels for the purpose of engaging in the overseas but not in the coast- 

 wise trade. 



Because of the absolute lack from 1860 onward of any comprehensive encouragement 

 for the employment of American vessels in other than our coastwise commerce, there was 

 only scant, precarious demand for the construction of such vessels, and American ocean ship- 

 building became a weakened industry. I have long been convinced that in past discussion of 

 the decline of the American overseas marine altogether too much emphasis has been placed 

 upon the change from sail to steam and from wood to iron and then to steel. It is true 



