362 BANQUET. 



ADDRESS BY HON. A. D. LASKER, CHAIRMAN OF THE UNITED STATES 



SHIPPING BOARD. 



In the thirty odd years since the birth of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine 

 Engineers, I am told, no single year has passed when speakers at this annual dinner have 

 failed, in well-rounded phrases, to clamor for an American merchant marine and to hold 

 forth the hope of the dawn of a new day in American over-sea shipping. When the war, as 

 one of its vital problems, thrust on this nation the necessity for the creation of an over-night 

 merchant marine, it seemed as if the vision of shipbuilder and shipowner was nearly an ac- 

 complished fact. When month after month showed mounting records of tonnage launched 

 and vessels completed, imtil peak production was reached in 1919, at nearly double Great 

 Britain's maximum yearly production, to many the American merchant marine appeared an 

 accomplished fact. When demand for ships continued, so that every vessel could find a cargo 

 in every trade, when America's 10,000,000 tons flew the flag on every sea, to many of those 

 nearest the business the dream of a merchant marine seemed close to achievement. Then came 

 the anti-climax. 



In the spring of 1920 began the softening of freight rates, the falling off of demand for 

 tonnage, which, on an ever-increasing scale, continued well into the present year. Today this 

 country finds between one-third and one-fourth the privately owned vessels of its fleet and 

 two-thirds of its government-owned fleet are swinging idly at anchor or moored with smoke- 

 less funnels at their docks. Falling freight rates have again stressed all of the disadvantages 

 under which American ships must operate in competition with their rivals. Greater carrying 

 charges due to higher first cost, higher bills for wages and for living expenses, greater upkeep 

 cost, higher insurance, and more stringent government laws have all made the lot of the 

 American shipowner a conspicuously unhappy one in a market where the shipowners of the 

 entire world are crying out for better times. 



Confronted by this situation, a new Shipping Board took office some five months ago, 

 and at the end of this short but busy period is just now ready to settle down as an organiza- 

 tion, and for the first time to begin functioning as contemplated by the Merchant Marine Act 

 of eighteen months ago. 



It is idle to explain to this audience the magnitude of the problem that confronts the 

 board. It is useless to paint to you who have spent your lives in shipping and shipbuild- 

 ing the picture of the difficulties that surroimd the problem and that must be overcome if 

 sound principles are to be enunciated and a foundation laid upon which can be erected a per- 

 manent structure of American-built, owned, manned, and operated merchant marine sufficient 

 to carry the greater part of this country's foreign commerce. Nor can the board today re^ 

 port that it has made more than a first beginning in the study of these mighty problems or 

 that it has seen more than the first blush of the coming dawn, before the daylight that we 

 hope will soon flood out the darkness that now surrounds this situation. 



It has seemed good to me tonight to present to this body some of the first facts that 

 have been gathered in the study of our foreign commerce, an imderstanding of which must 

 form the beginning of our knowledge of the fines along which to proceed; indeed, in the 

 study of these facts many things have already become clear that have changed our precon- 



