202 HOW CAN AMERICAN SHIPS COMPETE 



carried in American vessels. At last accounts the United States Shipping Board had been 

 unable to obtain any concession whatsoever of any share of this American carrying trade, 

 and the case was being transferred to the Department of State for diplomatic action. 



From instances like these Americans can gather something of the exclusive, arbitrary 

 methods by which Great Britain has developed her immense merchant marine, and some- 

 thing of the difficulties beyond mere wage scales which we must meet if we are to wrest from 

 British carriers any part of the transportation to the United States of imports which Amer- 

 ican merchants and manufacturers have purchased. 



All over the world British manufacturers and merchants and their representatives will 

 be found demanding that British ships must secure all the cargoes which they can manage to 

 control. There must be similar tenacious organization and cooperation of American manu- 

 facturers and merchants in the interest of their own country's sliips and their own country's 

 flag if our new merchant marine is to have the even chance to which it is honestly entitled. 



Another important factor in the maritime situation, beyond the lower wage and main- 

 tenance cost of foreign ships and the disciplined activity of our competitors, is the generous 

 direct or indirect national aid extended by all governments, particularly to their regular line 

 steamship services. Just before the great war the United States Commissioner of Naviga- 

 tion published an analysis of the subsidies, subventions and bounties then being paid to the 

 steamship interests of the world's chief maritime nations. These sums aggregated about 

 $46,000,000 a year, of which Great Britain's own share was approximately $10,000,000. 

 ^¥hile the British and the Germans at that time gave direct state aid only for mail, passen-i 

 ger and fast freight services, it was significant that other governments, notably France, Italy 

 and Japan, were subsidizing virtually their entire merchant marines and even giving direct 

 bounties to shipbuilding. 



As rapidly as possible, these subsidies, subventions and bounties are now being reestab- 

 lished — they were not necessary during the continuance of the war. It is probable that when 

 the total sums of these state expenditures are again recorded they will be found amounting 

 to a great deal more than $46,000,000 a year, for the war itself most vividly emphasized to 

 all governments and all peoples the tremendous value, indeed the imperative necessity, of a 

 strong commercial shipping for defensive and commercial purposes. 



What the American people must, therefore, prepare to do to enable American merchant 

 ships to compete successfully with the ships of foreign nations is : ( 1 ) To find the most prac- 

 ticable form of equalizing American sea wages and costs of maintenance with the wages and 

 costs of maintenance of foreign ships, by a system of preferential duties or subsidies and sub- 

 ventions, or some other still more effective method, if that can be found; (2) of organizing 

 American manufacturers, merchants and bankers into a league as disciplined and powerful 

 as the similar British league, for example, for securing the carriage of a greater share of our 

 imports and exports to American ships; (3) of offsetting foreign subsidies, subventions, 

 bounties and like national assistance given to the ships of our competitors. In addition, if 

 it is discovered that the first cost of American-built ships is greater than the first cost of 

 foreign-built ships, there must be full compensation for this factor also. In other words, the 

 American merchant marine must be made what it has not been for more than sixty years, 

 a nationally protected industry, as for most of the life of this republic manufacturing and 

 agriculture have been protected industries. These things must all be done, or the new Ameri- 

 can merchant fleet, which is even now being beaten off the ocean by its competitors, will 

 inevitably again decline and disappear exactly as the old merchant marine was declining from 

 1855 onward. 



