The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

June, 1925 high quality and poor quality. This is so particularly true of this prod- uct, the total cost of which in the building of a steel ship is only an insignificant fraction of the whole. In this connection a leaky wooden deck over passenger quarters may cause an endless amount of annoyance, ill will and a good deal of expense. The very best sort of a job done at the start is MARINE REVIEW decidedly the most economical. As the total consumption of oak- um is comparatively limited, the num- ber of companies engaged in its manu- facture: is small and _ consequently processes and machinery used has been developed individually. This has been done to a high degree of efficiency by the Geo. Stratford Oakum Co., Jersey City, N. J., said 215 to be the largest and best equipped manufacturer of oakum in the world. An inspection of this plant will prove most interesting and instructive in showing how this ancient commodity is made by the use of modern ma- chinery ingeniously developed to meet the particular needs of that special business. By such methods the cost of production has been reduced. Guy E. Tripp on Shipping Situation So views of Guy E. Tripp, chairman of the Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., on the American foreign shipping situation given in his address before the Pro- peller club in New York City on April 2, should be carefully considered by all who are trying to help in consolid- ating and increasing American ton- nage in the foreign trade. He said in part: Our shipping did not pass out along with sailing ships, but on the contrary we were abreast of the maritime world in steam ships when the Civil war broke out. Shortly after the Civil war, while the internal taxes were abolished, the import tariff duties remained, but upon a fundamentally different basis; that is to say, the import duties upon purely revenue articles were abolished while those which served to protect domestic industries were maintained. The resulting high wages and con- sequently high costs were beneficial to those engaged in domestic trade and they did not entirely close the door to foreign trade. But, in the case of American ship- ping, the door is completely. shut. It cannot take any advantage of lower foreign costs; therefore, when it had to compete with these lower costs, it succumbed and remained succumbed until the World war. It seems to me that the case is so clear you can hang your hat on it. Complaints and criticisms alleging the loss of our seafaring genius and abil- ity as the reason for the decline of our shipping have no force of logic. Interest in Protection Not Ships So, when the successful American business man has looked complacently down at you through all these years, he was not taller than you, he was merely standing upon a tariff wall. Please do not anticipate an attack on the protective tariff because you will be disappointed. I am in favor of protection. As a result of our truly marvelous efforts in shipbuilding during the war - ufactures, we now have a respectable merchant fleet, a large portion of which, it is true, is inactive. But we are now carrying about 85 per cent of our foreign commerce in our own ships. The past history of our merchant marine points out very clearly what the future will be, assuming certain conditions; and, as there are condi- tions under which we might again revert to practically no American ships in foreign trade, it may be well to ask ourelves if we really need them for any reason. Our British friends appear to think that we do not; and here he quotes Sir Westcott S. Abell in Brassey’s Naval and Shipping Annual 1925: In other words, he says, Great Britain’s superior shipping does not hinder the proper development of our foreign trade because we have a fav- orable balance of trade with her. I cannot follow this reasoning. I sympathize with England’s desire to be strong on the seas both as to her navy and merchant marine. But we need a merchant marine for rea- sons of our own which do not in any way threaten the security of Great Britain and the reasons are admirably summarized in the Republican plat- form of the last presidential election. “The Republican party stands for a strong and permanent merchant ma- rine built by Americans, owned by Americans and manned by Ameri- cans to secure the necessary contact with the world markets for our sur- plus agricultural products and man- to protect our’ shippers and importers from exorbitant ocean freight rates, and to become a pow- erful arm of national defense.” The democratic platform said about the same thing, therefore it is fair to say that the American people think they want a merchant marine. Wheth- er they do actually want one will be shown by the amount of interest which they display in it in the future. If we should strip our shipping of all its artificial patches, it would, so far as ship owners and operators are concerned, stand forth in the naked- ness of free trade; that is to say, it would have the right to buy its ships and have them repaired wherever it could get the lowest price and em- ploy seamen wherever and whenever they could be hired to the best ad- vantage. or Under these conditions it could probably compete successfully with the world; and, not only that, the United States shipping board would thus be enabled to get a competi- tive price for a portion of its ships and could then go out of the ship- ping business which is an end greatly to be’ desired. Shipping Entitled to Compensation If you were permitted to buy and freely repair your ships in the cheap- est market, it would threaten our shipbuilding industry. The simplest remedy for that curtailment of action would be the granting of a subsidy by the government as compensation for all or a part of the difference in cost. Possibly you cannot hope for the right to hire seamen, at the best terms when and where you will. A cure for that is to place merchant marine officers and seamen in a sort of naval reserve, the government to pay the difference in wages and sa- laries over the competitive rate. It is stated upon excellent authority that this plan will permit us to carry at least 50 per cent of our own commerce in our own ships at a: cost to the government of about $10,- 000,000 per year—a trivial expense in comparison with the results. But whatever plan we adopt to build up and preserve our American marine transportation service for the carrying of our foreign commerce, it should be limited in its ambitions to only an equitable share of the trade and that share may be fairly fixed at one-half of the total volume. I leave this last suggestion with you because I believe it to be of vital im: portance in the maintenance of peace.