368 BANQUET. 



South America must also be a great field for our domestic and foreign export of manu- 

 factured articles. With the increase of exports to South America and to the Orient, the de- 

 velopment of our commerce may lie in the so-called triangular voyage. Our ship, with cargo 

 of coal to Buenos Aires, may find it necessary to return to Hampton Roads via Europe, trans- 

 porting a grain cargo to that continent and returning in ballast across the North Atlantic. 



Today, transportation is available at nearly pre-war rates. In quantity, far more is 

 waiting to the exporter's hand than existed before the war. Cheap and plentiful occcm car- 

 riage is assured. The development of markets waits on the united effort of shipowner, manu- 

 facturer, banker, exporter; all under the eye of a government that has adopted the model of 

 more business in government and less government in business. (Applause.) 



Under the mandate of the Jones Act, and because it is the spirit of the Harding ad- 

 ministration, the Government as quickly as possible wants to retire from government opera- 

 tion and ownership, that private inspiration and private initiative may conquer the almost in- 

 superable obstacles that seem to face us in all forms of world trade. (Great applause.) 



With this in view, aside from the development of American shipping, if American pros- 

 perity as a whole is to be insured through the development of American foreign trade, an in- 

 spired interest for group action must be born among bankers and manufacturers as well as 

 shipowners. The Edge law, in constructive statesmanship, provides for such combinations 

 among manufacturers in the foreign trade. In time, such groups should be a bulwark for 

 our merchant marine. 



But, recognizing the need of strong groups of united manufacturers and bankers in 

 our country to meet the competition of strong groups of united bankers and manufacturers 

 in other coimtries is not enough. 



We must come to the realization that the great North Atlantic and Pacific trade routes, 

 so far as passenger service is concerned, are in the hands of a few strong foreign groups. 

 Germany, with all its great effort between the wars of 1870 and 1914, was able to build up in 

 the North Atlantic only two strong companies. Great Britain, with hundreds of years on the 

 seas, has but two major passenger carrying lines in the North Atlantic. 



It is this competition that we must meet — not domestic, but foreign — and we must meet 

 it in kind. This in nowise means that the small operator and the new operator of many 

 types of ships shall not be encouraged. Indeed, he will be fostered to the utmost by the Gov- 

 ernment. But it does mean that we must interest all the strength of our people, not only 

 government but private concerns and individuals, in a united effort to win our place on the seas 

 in competition with the united power of individual nations of the world. (Great applause.) 



I would like to address to this body, which has, possibly, as large a direct interest in 

 shipping as any group in America, a few words as to the interest of President Harding in 

 a merchant marine, that interest being to many of you a matter of great concern at this par- 

 ticular time. I remember in the course of the campaign, in the early days, last July, when I 

 was trying to secure his attention to another subject, he turned to me, who was then in no- 

 wise interested in shipping, and said: "One of my major ambitions is to be the President 

 who aids in putting back the American flag on the seas." (Great applause.) At present, 

 President Harding's attention and that of most of the members of the Cabinet is centered 

 in the Limitations Conference in Washington, and I know the hopes of all of us are for its 

 success. In the declaration to other countries at the conference our government has stated 

 that, in the event of Naval Disarmament, the Merchant Marine becomes of increased im- 

 portance in an inverse ratio, and this must be so, if we are to keep our flag on the seas. To 



