The Commoner
MAT, 1916
The American Merchant Marine
Address of Hon. William C. Redfield before
the Civic Club, Brooklyn, New York, December
15, 1915.
May I take as texts these words from the Jour
nal of Commerce of May 6th last: "About 1,0 Of
bales of standard drills were sold for shipment
to India last week and more could be gold 11
satisfactory shipping arrangements could be
made," and also this extract from the monthly
statement of the National City bank, New York,
for May: "The lumber industry would be very
much helped by the British demand if ships were
available. Mills in Maine, the southern states,
and the Pacific northwest are being hampered by
this situation." Against these let me offset these
words from the "Economist," London, of No
vember 13:
"In future the government may requisition for
the carriage of grain and other merchandise any
ship registered in the United Kingdom, and after
December 1st no British ship ,of over 500 tons
may carry cargo from one foreign port to an
other without first obtaining a license from a
committee in London. All British shipping Is
liable to be requisitioned for commercial pur
poses; all trade in British bottoms between for
eign ports is to be under direct government con
trol." "These are revolutionary measures, which
nothing but urgent necessity could justify and
the full effects of which it is impossible to fore
tell." The major facts of today respecting the ship
ping situation are unique. They present a spec
tacle in which one great fact that would in or
dinary times be controlling is offset by another
fact of equal weight, the whole forming a collec
tion of extremes new to our knowledge and
thought. ' ' ' ' ;
Our merchant marine was never as large as
today. The increase in it was never as large as
in the last fiscal year. It is growing today fast
er than it ever grew before. We never needed
ships as badly as we need them now. We never
were more dependent upon foreign ships than
now we are. Never did this dependence rest
on a more Bhaky foundation. Never had we so
much of a marine. Never did we suffer so much
from lack of one. Never did we add to it so fast.
Never was our helplessness to add to it sufficient
ly more marked.
We have talked in the past about the cost of
construction and of operation as if these were
the only things to be considered. Now in a hun
dred business houses you would be told that
these are trifles beside the greater fact that their
goods will not be carried at all for reasons re
lating to war conditions which we did not cre
ate, foT which we are not accountable but which
permit the aliens who own the ships we need
must use to make restrictions within their law
ful power and right but prohibitive to our com
merce. It does not answer this to say we never
sold so much abroad before, for to that may be
said we do so by the consent of others whose
interest for the time it is that we should so sell,
but whose interest it also is to impose certain
restrictions necessary or desirable to them which
prevent our doing business save so far as they
consent to it.
A shipment of flour to Egypt is stopped at the
dock because others need the ships that had con
tracted to carry it, and our shipper is helpless
because of the war clause in his contract. A large
manufacturer has 150 cases of goods returned
to his factory because a bond is exacted in con
nection with a wholly neutral shipment of goods,
the character of which is not questioned, which
makes it impossible to continue the shipment.
When in normal dependence upon a contract
another shipper forwards -goods to your port
for foreign transit, the vessel that was to take
them is commandeered by its government, and
our .shipper protests in vain. Here in Brooklyn
a large shipment is refused transit because the
shipper has not signed a certain agreement hav
ing nothing to do with the goods which are re
fused. Even a shipment from New York to
Manila, (between two ports of the United States
it will be noted) is refused transportation unless
the shipper will sign an agreement as to the na
tionality 'of the consignee.
You will observe that it is not a question of
rate, or even in all cam of vessels, but rather
that since we must depend on ships of alien own
ership to carry our goods, It is clear that when
the interest or the duty of those alien owners re
quire them to put their own necessities first, we
helplessly stand aside. Just so far as these things
(0 we are not an independent people. We do
our trade by the consent of others when It
pleases them to hare us do it, as it pleases them
to have us do it, and to the extent that it pleases
them to have us do it, and under rules which
they lay down. That is the condition In which
we now stand. Until we got enough American
ships wo must accede to the necessities which
may and now do compel alien owners of vessels
to action hurtful to us.
The question is not one of dollars and cents, of
cost and profit, but of our commercial independ
ence. No people are free so long as they are
bound, and we are not now a free peoplo on the
sea. We must for the greater part do as others
say and accept the conditions as pleasantly as we
can and pay the bills with as little demur as
possible. I must not bo understood as by impli
cation criticising those many nations whose ne
cessities havo in ono or another way caused us
embarrassment. I do say that a marine declara
tion of independence is necessary and that the
United States should be free to carry on its neu
tral trade and its lawful commerco unhindered
save by the law of nations and the rules which it
sees fit to impose for its own interest upon ves
sels under its own flag.
In our export trade are two great divisions
the temporary and the permanent. It Is to our
interest to promote the latter. It is to some ex
tent the interest of our customers to promote the
former. The farmer, the merchant, the mechan
ic, the miner are alike interested to have Amer
ican commerce flow freely to all parts of the
world where it wills to go, under control of those
in sympathy with it and whoso duty it Is to pro
mote it. We have been a department store with
out a delivery system, depending on our rivals
for the use of their wagons. Now there are few
er wagons than there were and our need for de
livery is greater than It was. Our rivals, in
deed, want us to use so many of their wagons
as will take to them the goods they need. They
do not care to have us use other of their wagons
because they need them themselves in their busi
ness, and their business just at present is not our
business and is more important to them than our
business is. So we are out of it in large part till
we get wagons of our own. So much briefly for
the need.
Our facilities are 'strained to meet It. On July
1st last we were building 76 steel merchant ves
sels in our shipyards. Between July 1st and De
cember 1st 126 had been ordered, making 202
in all of a total of 761,511 gross tons. I do not
tonight intend to discuss the so-called Seamen's
act, but I may bo permitted to say that an In
crease in the last five months of over one and a
half times, the number of vessels building on
July 1st, does not seem to justify the charges
of ruin against that measure. The construction
of American merchant vessels now in progress or
under contract is not only greater in tonnage
than at any former time in the history of the
United States, but this new tonnage is more effi
cient than the merchant ships constructed at any
previous time in our history. Indeed there is
competent authority for saying that the Amer
ican freight steamer by reason of her design and
equipment is a more efficient tool for transporta
tion than her foreign competitor. If It be con
ceded that under conditions before the war she
cost more to operate at sea, It Is also true that
she costs less to load in port, and by reason of
her greater handiness in this respect she wastes
less time at the dock and makes more trips at
sea. This Is true to the extent that in a busi
ness where the run is from three to four days
from port to port such an American vessel would
make a full extra trip a year, and would in so
doing by her greater earning power nearly or
quite offset the alleged difference in the cost of
her operation.
The tonnage of merchant ships now building
or under contract in the United States is greater
than the amount of such tonnage which any na
tion, save Great Britain alone, has ever had un
der construction at any time in its history. By
far the greater part of the tonnage under con
struction is specially adapted for the foreign ex
port trade of the United States by sea. This
will appear by selecting thoso larger vessel
which make up the great bulk of the tonnage
now building. Thirteen are of 10,000 gross tons
or over; 20 are from 7,000 to 10,000 tons; 31
aro from 5,000 to 7,000 tons; 10 are from 4,00i
to 5,000 tons; 19 are from 3,000 to 4,000 tons,
a total of 98 which are in excess of 3,000 tons.
If to the 98 ships thus building we add 'the 30
of similar sizes which wo had on June 30th last,
there would bo a total which would place us third
In the ownership of ocean steamers of 3,000"
gross tons or over, following Great Britain and
Germany but greatly exceeding France, Japan,
Italy or any other nation. In our lake yards are
building 7 ocean vessels for Norwegian shipown
ers, a larger foreign order for merchant ships
than we havo had in many years. Nearly all
these 98 larger ocean steamers aro structurally
adapted for the foreign ocean trade, and that
structure is the test to bo applied, for a ship so
built may change at any time from tho domestic
to tho foreign trade according as freights offer.
Another classification of the vessels now build
ing over 3,000 tons is as follows: 11 of them are
colliers, 47 arc for carrying bulk oil, 34 aro for
general freight purposes, and 6 for passcngors
and freight. Four of those for oil are for Nor
wegian owners.
Apart from the building .thus progressing,
there have been admitted under tho act of Au
gust 8, 1914, to American registry 171 vessels
of 583,733 gross tons, which includes 6 yachts,
and there have during the same period been
transferred to other flags 92 vessels of 37,201
gross tons, 3 of which only, of 9,311 tons, were
ships taken In under our Registry act. It Is
commonly said that many of these .vessels will
bo replaced under foreign registry when tho war
shall close, but apart from the fact that congress
may in its wisdom, and In accord with British
precedents, see fit to consider whether tho trans
fer of a ship under the American flag to an alien
flag should not be conditioned upon tho approval
of our government, there are other indications
that seem to throw doubt upon tho statement.
Two-thirds of the officers of the ships which
have thus come under the flag are American cit
izens or those whose first citizenship papers havo
been filed. Thus on December 9th, out of a total
of 989 officers, 533 wore full American citizens
and 144 had taken out their first papers. Hence
more than two-thirds (677 out of 989) were of
this class. It seems strange that this should bo
so if it Is reasonably cortain the ships were go
ing back under other flags, oven where alien laws
do not forbid American citizens to officer their
ships.
The belligerent nations have assumed enor
mous debts, and this burden must be carried by
taxation in which their shipping will bo expected
to take its share. Foreign taxation on shipping
as a rule has not been onerous, but this may not
prove to be the case hereafter. The income tax
of a great English company has not been heavy
in the past, but already these Income taxes have
been greatly increased. On tho other hand therje
is no present tendency here toward a material
Increase in taxes on American shipping.
Despite this great past and present Increase
in our ocean shipping, ve are yet sadly handi
capped in our foreign trade, and much as we are
doing we are still unable to seize to the full the
opportunity at present offered us. Every craft
that can by courtesy be called a ship is in ser
vice. The familiar coasting schooner Is in the
Mediterranean coal trade and if there were more
of them they could bo so employed. The Eng
lish merchant marine has either lost or is using
for war purposes one-quarter its full strength,
perhaps more. In a degree the same is true of
the other belligerent powers, and, of course, cer
tain fleets are absent from the seas.
This leads us to discuss tho question some
have raised as to what will happen after the war.
They say there will be a surplus of ships and no
special need will therefore exist for us to de
velop our marine. I admire but do not under
stand the foresight of those minds who can tell
what Is going to happen before the war shall
end. Thus far It seems to me there has been &
pretty steady dally destruction of merchant ves
sels of almost all nations. If I read the press
aright, the process Is going on. As I do not
know when and where it will stop, I can not
make safe predictions upon it. It seems to, me
possible there may be fewer merchant vessels
six months hence, save in our own fleet, than
there are now. When the war shall end certain
things seem likely to happen. Germany dljl &
total foreign trade of nearly or quite $4,500,
000,000 yearly. She will want to get It bjick
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