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An American Merchant Marine Is Economically Justified HE late war proved clearly the necessity of an adequate merchant marine. It is not well in emergencies to be dependent upon others. Even the vicissitudes of peace time bring out the fallacy of such de- pendence. The very economic life of a nation must come first and if ships are needed under such circumstances they will be diverted to fore- stall disaster, and justly so. The serious eco- nomic situation of the growers of cotton and grain in the United States last fall due to lack of customary tonnage to move the crops during the protracted coal strike in England is a typical case in point. Sixty laid up American government owned freighters placed in service at that time. provided effective re- enue, and for the fiscal year 1927 even a larger amount will be spent. It is apparent that it is far better to keep this money at home for our own people than to pay it to foreign lines for expenditure abroad. “Abraham Lincoln once said: ‘If you buy an article abroad, they have the dollar and you have the article. If you buy an article here you have the article and also the dollar.’ “We have been able to keep in operation for the benefit of our own nationals over 300 active shipping board ships in twenty-five established trade routes, carrying our products to all the larger markets of the world. This has been accomplished at an expense to the Amer- ican taxpayer during 1926 of but 2.2 cents i) Vi Da Milani, if. rh ea cs rm CH (6 Linen lief. Again when the c ie yf — for every dollar’s emergency comes a ss worth of goods car- maritime nation with- ried. During that out ships is helpless Teen period the United and. it- eannot. be @ marine States shipping board otherwise. i) ships covered over But there is also a very definite economic justification for car- rying a fair share of our own foreign trade even under normal conditions. It is rec- ognized that all other seafaring nations are similarly entitled to carry an_ equitable part of our mutual trade. We want to increase our trade and will respect the rights and just ambi- tions of other nations. The following taken from a letter addressed to the editor of MARINE REVIEW by Gen. A. C. Dalton, president of the Merchant Fleet Corp. shows the economic value to the country as a whole of the present Amer- ican merchant marine in the foreign trade. “For the fiscal year 1926, the United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corp. expended for supplies, material and labor in the United States over $80,000,000 earned from cargo rev- Reprinted by courtesy of New York American Ine. SSS — —_ = oe SA a SA A =A 11,270,341 miles, car- rying cargoes of ex- ports and _ imports valued at approxi- mately; $850,000,000. “The only way to keep the American dollars at home is to give employment to Americans in every line. of industry. American ships mean American — shipyards in which thousands of American workmen can be employed. American ships re- quire American steel and iron, American lumber and American mate- rials of many kinds to build. American sailors should man our ships. American stevedores and dockworkers should load them. American pro- ducers of all the supplies required for ships should furnish them for American ships at home. “Remember that foreign flag ships buy their supplies at home, not in America. The supplies for the 300 vessels of the United States shipping MARINE REVIEW—-May, 1927 11