DEVELOPMENT OF A MERCHANT MARINE AND COMMERCE. 223 



adequate for the traffic and open to all on equal terms, or unless satisfactory assurances 

 are received that local or other interests will provide such adequate terminal or terminals. 

 The Secretary of War, through tlie Chief of Engineers, shall give full publicity, as far 

 as may be practicable, to this provision." 



At one of the meetings on national port problems held by the American Society of 

 Civil Engineers in New York, in September, 1921, Maj. Gen. Lansing H. Beach, Chief of 

 Engineers, in the course of an address on "Terminals" said that the power given by this 

 Act to suspend work on current projects has not as yet been exercised, for it has been 

 found that interests favoring the growth of some ports have endeavored to have the law used 

 to further their own ends, by causing the suspension of the improvement of rival ports. 

 This Act of Congress establishes the important principle that the improvement of ports at 

 public cost may be expected hereafter to be largely confined to those ports that conform to 

 established national policies pertaining thereto. 



Congress reaffii-med its general interest in promoting all kinds of water transportation 

 as an important factor in commerce by stating in the Esch-Cummins Railroad Bill that "it 

 is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress to promote, encourage, and develop water 

 transportation, service and facilities in connection with the commerce of the United States." 



In any comparison or classification of our ports, the question arises at the outset : What 

 yard-stick shall be used? Is the importance of a port to be gauged by the volume of foreign 

 commerce only that passes through it, or by its combined foreign and coastwise domestic 

 commerce ; and shall the volume be measured by its value in dollars, by its weight in tons, 

 or by the tonnage of the vessels that use it? Or shall ports be arranged in the order of their 

 capacity as determined from the size and character of their facilities — that is, by their po- 

 tential ability to handle business ? Also, should not great weight be given in any classifica- 

 tion to such vital matters as speed and economy of port operation, to port organization, and 

 especially to the degree of conformance to national policies regarding public terminals, and 

 assistance rendered in promoting our merchant marine? It would seem that mere size or 

 volume of business should not be the controlling criteria, but that the true measure of a 

 port should be the extent to which it is useful in promoting both commerce and the merchant 

 marine of our country. 



The Chief of Engineers publishes as part of his annual report the most complete com- 

 mercial statistics of our ports that are available. These are compiled by the Board of En- 

 gineers on Rivers and Harbors. They include the tonnage and value of the commerce of 

 each port that is under improvement by the United States, and show, for the calendar year 

 1919, that the foreign and coastwise commerce of twenty-seven of our continental ports ex- 

 ceeded either one million tons in weight, or one hundred million dollars in value, or both. 

 These limits are entirely arbitrary. Sixteen of these ports are on the Atlantic Coast, six on 

 the Gulf of Mexico, and five on the Pacific Coast. The business of several additional ports 

 approached these limits. These figures indicate that at the present time we have in the 

 neighborhood of thirty important seaports, actively competing with each other for business. 

 There is a considerable number of additional potential ports, standing by, as it were, anxious 

 to be given an opportunity to show their value as links in our overseas trade. Approxi- 

 mately 75 per cent of our sea-borne commerce passes through a dozen of our ports. New 

 York stands pre-eminent in both foreign and coastwise domestic commerce, and is followed, at 

 some distance, by Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Norfolk. 



