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

Scrap Laid-up Ships—Build New These Ships Are Obsolete—Have Outlived Their Usefulness— Cannot Be Economically Adapted to Modern Requirements HEN Senator Fletcher of W Florida in his statement that the portion of the laid-up fleet that has been so much in the public eye recently should not be regarded as junk fit only for scrap- ping he is unquestionably represent- ing a general, and rather large ele- ment of public opinion. Of course they look like effective ships, and it did cost a lot of emerg- ency money to build them in the Great Emergency. But the economic effectiveness of any machine cannot be judged merely by its appearance or cost of preservation in idleness. The efficiency must be judged in comparison with mechanisms in serv- ice. The economic tragedy of war is that today these ships in, the scrap- ping bids are effective only for what can be recovered as scrap. Person- ally, I believe too little informative emphasis has been placed on this matter by the shipping industry, and to my mind there is no doubt that Senator Fletcher does represent a large element of critical but unjust public opinion that must be recog- nized more fully by the shipping interests. There is no doubt that the Ameri- can public generally is rather suspi- cious at the idea of this wholesale junking of ships that can float and whose’ superstructures look pretty much like those of any other ships that sail the seas. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the average citizen to appreciate the necessity for building new tonnages, or planning for such building, when he thinks of the long lines of ships tied up in the Hudson river, James river and elsewhere—which, to his mind, from external appearances, are very much like the ships which are in active service. The thought of applying the acetylene torch to ships apparently sound and which but a short time ago cost millions to build, is instinctively abhorrent to the man in the street; and this resentment will reflect itself in elections. Congress- men and senators and the other of- ficials as well will have to meet the questions. Once let this fleet be scrapped and the public and congress be only par- tially or idly informed and they will BY WILLIAM FRANCIS GIBBS meet for years—whenever there is any attempt to get some constructive American understanding and _ protec- tion of American merchant marine— the awkward questions as to why ship owners did not buy ships when they were going a-begging for a _ buyer, instead of allowing them to be scrapped for old iron. Actually, of course, the majority of these idle ships are as useless for the maintenance and upbuilding of our merchant marine as_ percussion cap muskets of the Civil war era would be for equipping our army of today. They are one of the indus- Determing a Business Shipping Policy The United States chamber of commerce has started an_ ener- getic campaign to get together the best business judgment of the whole country on an Ameri- Meetings can shipping policy. are scheduled at Seattle and Ta- coma, Aug. 31; at Portland, Ore., Sept. 1; at San Francisco, Sept. 3-4; at Los Angeles, Sept. 5; at Salt Lake City, Sept. 9; and at Denver, Sept. 10. Ten confer- ences will be held to cover eleven states. trial tragedies of the war—built when their building was a marvel of achievement in that they could be built at all. It was like building a fire engine after the fire breaks out. But we did it. A duty rests upon us in the ship- ping field, therefore, to clearly edu- cate the people as to the true status of these idle ships and of the real necessity of providing for adequate new tonnage for replacements. There must be thorough enlightenment of the public mind as to why these idle ships are unusable, and they are entitled to it. I have listened with respect to the various schemes proposed for dis- position of these ships, but most of them would cost more for the purpose to be served than would other available means. It seems, to the uninformed, cruel to junk them, but it is only one (and let us hope the last) of the wasteful trage- dies of war. Let them be scrapped, 327 and let us face the problem of the future of American shipping and the goal of an American merchant ma- rine. Other nations have their pros- perous merchant marines; why not the United States? There is but one answer. And we should make it. These ships are essentially junk from an economic standpoint in the light of present and future. shipping needs. But until the truth of this is convincingly manifested to the American public, enterprise will be halted, constructive planning will be handicapped, and the shipping of the future will be prejudiced to a point perilously close to disaster. Scrap and build—but take time to explain to the people why the first is an absolute pre-requisite and the second an essential thing for their future peace and _ security. Once let the people visualize these two factors in their true proportions, and we can confidently count upon their hearty support. United States Leads in Ownership of Tankers A recent survey of the tanker ships engaged in, or available for, handling the world trade in petroleum and other oils, and molasses, made by the bureau of research, United States shipping board, indicates that on June 1, 1925, the United States ranked first in ownership of this class of ves- sels, with 45 per cent of the gross tonnage and 39 per cent of the total number of ships. Great Britain was a close second, however, with 36 per cent of the gross tonnage. Gross Country Ships Tons United States .... 402 2,507,854 Great Britain .... 391 2,074,086 Holland: sistas 44 123,848 Norway cies 42 231,934 France: ccccucss 35 164,695 TA sccsakuan 35 145,005 Argentine ............ 14 49,421 Germany scncass 12 52,722 GAPAN Aisa 10 36,416 Spain iiss 9 31,305 Belgium. su3:.-: a 35,063 OUba: si uscines eee 7 25,636 Other Countries.. 31 140,051 POtal .cssunan 1,039 5,578,036