JAPAN'S DESERTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 76, 27 September 1944, Page 5

JAPAN'S DESERTS

LOSS OF SHIPPING

WASHINGTON, September 25 Rear-Admiral I and, chairman of the Maritime Commission, testifying before the Congressional War Economic Policy Committee, advocated reduction of Japan to the status of a pastoral nation. It would do them a great dea' of good to be relieved of all naval ard merchant vessels and be permitted to retain only coastwise trading ships, with the balance of their fleet divided among the United Nations, he srAd. He indicated that Germany should receive the same treatment, ' because both Japan and Germany before the war had used unfair trading practices and trickeries to delay foreign vessels m their ports. Rear-Admiral Land predicted a drastic slump in ship production in the United States after the war, and said that 30 or 40 of the 80 shipyards which were now buzzing with activity would be compelled to close down and the remainder would be used for repairs of the merchant marine. He advocated «jat United States merchantmen should carry after the war 40 or 50 per cent, of the United States' own exports, adding that it would be uneconomic to carry American goods in American bottoms, beyond certain points.

Discussing the post-war fate of the navy, he said the United States should dismantle after the war only unseaworthy craft, retaining all others for M years m a "ship sanctuary" to which nati2 n <i ouid turn in case of a further threat of aggression.