ONE OF THE GREAT WAR FACTORS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 82, 31 December 1917, Page 4

ONE OF THE GREAT WAR FACTORS

THE AMERICAN SHIPPING BOARD SILENT BATTLE AGAINST THE U-BOATS (13y Arthur D. Howden Smith, in the New l r ork "Evening Post.") In a tall office building on P Street in Washington the United States Shipping Board is solving the riddle of olfsetting the German submarine campaign hy tho construction of now oceangoing tonnage. A notable combination of industrial, engineering, and legal brains has been mobilised, and the entire mechanical resources of the country aro being harnessed to the job. Workmen in the shipbuilding yards may haggle about the eight-hour day and overtime, but the members of tho board in Washington do not know day from night, and no thought of their 7500 dollar salaries deters them from the merciless grind of fifteen hours and moro out of tho twenty-four.

It is a caso of drive, drive, drive, work, work, work, for the little group of men to whom the President has entrusted the neutralisation of tho submarine. Endless stacks of reports and statistics te he conned, involved details of legal and engineering problems to bo analysed and explained to puzzled subordinates, dozens of important callers to bo seen and satisfied, appointments to bo made and kept, a multiplicity of unforeseen troubles springing up on every hand to bo demolished or pacified. Men who were not used to working at high pressure could never stand tho strain, but to such tireless persons as Edward N. Hurley, chairman of the hoard; rear-Admiral Washington Lee Capps, the chief technical member; Bainbridgo Colby, New York's legal representative, the threo best-known members, fifteen hours of work a day is more or less familiar. And they do not ask for overtime. Perhaps the outstanding personality of the board is Bear-Admiral Capps, former Chief Constructor of the Navy, a tall, bearded, intellectual officer, with a life-long training in tho theory and practice- of shipbuilding, and a way of getting what he wants. Admiral Capps took the place from which Major-Gen-eral George W. Goethals resigned at the President's request after the quarrel between Goethals and William H. Denman, first chairman of the board.' To tho Navy, Capps stands in much tho same capacity as Goethals stands to the Army. He is above all else a a builder, a constructor. And,_ like Goethals, ho has a somewhatdomineering temper, which once led him into an impasse very similar to that which caused the "removal of Goethals and Denman from the board. Camps' trouble was with William yon L. Meyer, Secretary of the Navy under President Taft. The trouble began with disagreements between the line officers of the Navy and the Chief Naval Constructor. Secretary Meyer sided with the line officers, and, after Several attempts to conciliate Capps. asked him for his resignation as Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair. The Man Who Cets Ships Built.

In bringing up this episode of the past, however, emphasis should be laid on the point that' Admiral Cappshas shown himself in his present position to be pleasant to get along with and fully alive to , tho _ immense responsibility reposed in him. Nobody—not even the naval officers who criticised his administration of the Bureau of Construction and Repair as over-conservative—has ever denied him supremo ability for getting ships built. Ho supervised the most extensive building programme tho navy had ever attempted in the Roosevelt Administration. He knows just what shipbuilding means, and, according to those who have shared with him the labours of the past months, he has succeeded in impressing all who came in contact with him with his earnestness and efficiency of purpose. "Admiral Capps," said one or _ his most distinguished collaborators, "is a genius in ship construction, a man or gigantic intellect. His thorough grasp of the questions brought before the board has been of the greatest help to it. Technically, he is one of the best equipped men I ever saw." Edward N. Hurley, the chairman of the board,. to whom, naturally, falls the conduct of its varied together with the operation of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, tho great 00,000,000 dollar concern launched by the country to assist in the operation of the much-needed ships, is distinguished by those who know him as a driving force. He is a successful business man of the Middlo West—Chicago, to be quite accurate. Self-made, largely self-taught, shrewd, far-sight-ed, prone to calculations based on actualities rather than on "agreeable speculations, Mr. Hurley has met successfully a side of the hoard's uudertakings which Admiral Capps scarcely could have been expected to enjoy. "Ho is a human battering ram built to smash down opposition," said one of his friends. "He never wastes iime, energy, effort, or thought on tho nn-. essential. Ho is busy all the timo and ho expects those about him to be equally diligent. He is giving to this work for tho country all tho nervous energy and determination that he gave to the unbuilding of his own business."

Discovered by the President. Mr. Hurley, it might bo well to say, was an original discovery of the President, who picked him' out several years ago for the Federal Trade Commission. Before that ho never had held public office. ■ To Mr. Colby, the member in whom New Yorkers are naturally interested, have beon assigned many of the legal problems of the board. To him, for instance, has fallen the difficult task i« working out fair and equitable rales for the board to pay for commandeered vessols. The Shipping Act gives the board arbitrary power to seize vessels at need and to fix tho rates it considers desirable in payment for their charter. Of course, you can't'establish ono rato to apply to all kinds of vessels, largo and small, cargo-carriers and passenger-car-riers, fast and slow. What tho board has had to do in this case is a very fair sample of the tactics required in meeting many questions. Tho only recourse has been slow, careful sifting of all the evidence obtainable.

Just what the rates determined will bo it is too early to say. One rate must apply for vessels of a certain speed, and another rate for vessels of a lower speed. Fundamentally/ it is probable, the rate will bo calculated by tonnage, with due allowances for speed arid accommodations. The profit over nnd above all expenses and risks will very likely bo somewhere between 12 and 15 per cent. It is felt that a profit somewhat larger than would bo_ tolerated in less hazardous enterprises is justifiable for sea-going commerce. Tho shipowner whose boat ventures into the submarine zones risks his all, for insurance may repay him tho actual money loss involved, but no amount of money will secure him promptly _ another vessel to oarrv on. his business with. The shipbuilding yards are so choked with orders that private owners cannot get deliveries in terms under years, in most cases. Production of Now Tonnage. The major problem which tho Shipping Board has to consider is that of production of new tonnage, and into this enters tho uncertain human element of labour. Some days ago widespread strikes, on tho Pacific Coast

tied up practically all shipbuilding work' in that vicinity. The difficulty is not yet completely adjusted. It is a difficulty which it is anticipated will recur, not only hut many times. Wholly aside from the normal possibilities of trouble inherent in the uncertain relations between Capital and Labour, there aro manifold opportunities for tho stirring up of trouble by unpatriotio agitators. Tt is hoped by members of the board that when tho vast enterprises upon which it has embarked aro more fully understood, when tho prices and profits for construction definitely have been mobilised and the occasional unfairness in rates of pay eliminated, the labour menace will ha: reduced. But it will always remain tho most difficult problem—so long, at any i rate, experienced men feel, as no steps! are taken to bring about a more per-! font co-operation and understanding be-1 tween Onoital and Labour such as obtains in Great Britain..

Ono of the things the board is trying to do is to nrofit by the mistakes made by the British Government during the earlv days of tho submarino campaign. There were manv such mistakes. For instance, much hardshin was wrought by the essentially unfair method of commandeering ships by tho Government. No regular system was followed. The Government simply singled out ships hero and there, individually as happened to ho convenient. Tho result was that some of the smaller lines suffered unduly, while the larger ones escaped with no inconvenience to 6peak of. In time, of course, the Government realised its mistake, and measures were substituted which took into consideration all the facts in the situation of the owners of a vessel. The load was distributed evenly, and unfairness was eliminated. Reduoing inconvenience, Tho Shipping Board in Washington started upon its duties with full comprehension of this souroe of trouble, and much study has been devoted to ways to mako the inconvenience to individual owners as light as possible. To be sure, tho board cannot expect to satisfy every owner, and it knows it, but, at least, it does its best to be fair and to mako its requisitions with regularity and system. j It is safe to say that no phase of the |,work has interested the memberß of the board more—when their multiplicity of duties has permitted reflection, which is not often—than its tremendous possibilities for the future. Lika several other activities of the Government, it involves sweeping experiments jn Government ownership and regulation of industries, and no man in Washington to-day cares to speculate definitely upon what these experiments may lead to. One member of the board, who consented to spare a few moments o! his hard-pressed time, declared that the possibilities in the hoard's work in this respect alone might outweigh in ultimate importance even the existing obligation to defeat the submarines. "I' do not know what may happen," he said, "or where all this may lead to. But if our work is done successfully, id'' may be that we shall see changes we would never have looked for .in our time. Certainly, I cannot suppose people -will care- to return to former industrial conditions, if the experiments now, being carried out on so vast a scale reveal that Government supervision and regulation insure greater comfort and efficiency."