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with another 378 that the water line was in competition with the owning rail line and where it was thought the ownership was det- rimental to the public good. The New England roads were forced to relin- quish their control of the so-called sound lines. Some of the coastwise vessels on the Pacific were sold by the railroads, and the Great Lakes fleet passed out of the control of the railroads. This united with war con: ditions decreased the. coastwise fleet of the United States, while the over- seas fleet increased during the same period over 600 per cent. With the sale of the Old Dominion fleet on the Atlantic and the sale of some 13 vessels by the Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Co., the coastwise transporta- tion facilities of the United States are at the present moment threatened decrease. ; Congress has been guilty of many mistakes, but the railroads are doubt- less cognizant of none that has been so disastrous as the amendment to the Panama canal act. In this connec- tion, the words of President Under- wood of the Erie are significant. Poor Legislation to Blame "The merchant marine problem," said Mr. Underwood to a representative of THe Marine Review, "has been aug- mented by laws that mitigate against American ships. Until our ships are operated on a parity with ships oper- ated under foreign. flags, American capital will not be invested in ships. The American merchant marine was killed by bad legislation and. condi- tions, and it cannot be restored until both are removed. This should not be difficult of accomplishment--which | [aot cayine that it can be accom- plished." It may bear no immediate fruit, but it is a fact worth while noting . that already one member of congress has been led to realize the great damage done when the government decreed officially the railroads should have noth- ing to do with the development of water lines. A bill was introduced in congress at -the last session provid- ing for the repeal of the legislation which prevents the railroads possess- ing an interest in competitive water lines. When the restrictive legislation was first enacted it was designed to guarantee to port terminais that bene- fit of water competition which nature gave them. . Today when the interstate ° commerce commission possesses such sweeping powers over railroad rates, such restrictive legislation is useless, if not entirely unnecessary and un- warranted. If that conviction in the end prevails, the interest of the rail- roads in the American merchant ma- rine will undoubtedly be quickened. THE MARINE REVIEW Steamship men declare that their business is most difficult profession to learn. One important American steamship head said recently that a man must engage in shipping for a period of five years at least before he becomes productive. The overseas fleet of the United States has been mostly built during the past three years, the greater proportion during the calendar year 1919, com- plicating the problem of finding ot developing men capable of operating steamship routes without further no- tice. Ocean shipping, like any other shipping, is chiefly a traffic matter. Along these lines, the railroads of the United States already have the greater geniuses. The traffic men working for the railroads have secured salaried positions. It is difficult to tempt them to leave their desks with the railroads and take a gamble on their future be- fore a desk in a new steamship office. One remedy for this situation would apparently be a more generous atti- tude on the part of the public and of the government. If the railroads were definitely permitted to align them- selves up with overseas steamship de- velopments order would be quickly brought out of the present chaos. American railroads have often looked upon maritime developments as a mere extension of rail transportation. James. J. Hill; one of the greatest of the older railroad geniuses, conceived the advantages that would be had. He sought to develop a direct line from the Orient, transcontinental, to the port of New York. The steamships he built for the transpacific service were declared a commercial failure, not because the traffic idea was wrong, but because the ships were not eco- nomically designed for this particular trade. Had not Mr. Hilf suffered a tremendous set-back in the designing of his marine equipment, it is likely that his dream of feeding the Oriental traffic into New York would have de- veloped into a reality. While no permanent benefit result- ed from the Hill experiment, at least it proved to the world at large that America's railroad men were experts in traffic matters and were ambitious to approach both water and rail trans- portation as transportation men and solve them in the light of traffic ex- perts. The interstate commerce com- mission act and its various amend- ments, the navigation laws and the various shipping laws enacted by con- gress effectively checked any ambitions along this line. One of the results recognized today is the fact that it costs more to ship general cargo from the port of New York to Havana than it does to ship general cargo to the most complex and_ July, 1929 London. English ports are served with the lowest rates to all points of the world, because England has de- veloped a merchant marine under the British flag. It has also been alleged that another cause contributing to the failure of the Hill transpacific experiment was the unequal competition with the Jap- anese. Japanese wages were much iower than American, and the cost of operating Japanese ships was much less than the cost of American. In the old days the American ships attempted to meet this competition by employing Chinese crews, but the La Follette act put a stop to that. Then, too, the Japanese lines were subsidized and they were enabled to make preferen- tial through rates with the inland roads in Japan, the result being that a merchant could ship over a Jap- anese line to the interior point of de- livery for the identical charge that would be exacted of him by an Amer- ican ship between the sea ports. Differential Rates Provided That experience has taught Amer- icans something at least, and the ef- fects of it were apparent when the United States senate began discussing the shipping policy bill. An amend- ment was offered and included in the recently enacted law which permits American railroads to grant a differ- ential inland freight rate on imports and exports that are moved in Amer- ican bottoms. Railroad executives are understood to be willing to grant pref- erential rates on goods transported under the American flag. Furthermore, such a law is easy of application. Such discriminatory rates, it. must be re- membered, however, will not redound to the benefit of the merchant who ships. It will merely mean the giving of a larger division of the through freight charge to the American ship than to a foreign ship. The longest tow in the history of Pacific shipping has been successfully completed by the tug HERCULES upon ar- rival at Vancouver, B. C., with the dis- abled motorship LaAuREL WHALEN which was brought from Papeete. The 2381 miles from Papeete to Honolulu were done in 18 days. At the latter port fuel oil was replenished and 18 days' additional were required to cover the 2419 miles from Honolulu to British - Columbia. Extensive deep water terminals are to be tonstructed in Seattle by the shipping firm of Frank Waterhouse & Co. Pre- liininary work has been completed and it is announced that active construction will begin shortly.