AMERICAN SHIPPING SUBSIDIES.

Evening Star, Issue 18137, 29 November 1922, Page 6

AMERICAN SHIPPING SUBSIDIES.

To build up a mercantile marine which will enable half of America’s trade to be carried in her own ships under the American flag is the professed object of the Ship Subsidy Bill which President Harding has commended to Congress. It would not seem an unreasonable object for a great nation to desire to achieve, but so far it has not caused much enthusiasm in the United, States. The Ship Subsidy Bill! was before the Legislature as long ago as March last, but It was not found practicable to pass it then. Mr Harding evidently is not without his fears lest it should be rejected now, since ho has mado a special appeal to the country's patriotism as a motive for passing the Bill. “ If the legislation failed,’ 1 ho declared last week in a Message to Congress that was devoted alinost solely to this measure, “ the result would be supreme humiliation, and an admission that the United States was incapable of asserting itself In peace triumphs on the world’s seas. It is not shown, however, that the prestige of America has greatly suffered through failure, or a lack of inclination to be its own carrier to more than a very limited extent since the days of the clipper ship, and the policy of the President and the Shipping Board is likely to bo judged by the advantages that can bo ehown for it as a business proposition pure and simplb. Americans, since they have amounted to more than the inhabitants of a coastal strip, have, been little attracted by soar faring. They have found it more natural to “ go West,” and exploit the boundless possibilities of a continent which is their own, than to exploit the sea which they could only share with others. Special subsidies are not required fof the first kind of enterprise, and the fact that they are for the second makes it seem an unnatural enterprise for America. The industries that can only exist when they are bolstered up by Government subsidies and such artificial advantages over competitors as were sought to bo conferred on American shipping by the Jones Act of .two years ago are industries better left alone for the most part. But new conditions have arisen ip, United fltates in the

last few years which may make a case for this now maritime ambition in the eyes of Americans as a people, and especially in the eyes of their Administration. The accident of the war hoe caused America to bo now the possessor of a vast fleet of chips, State-owned, and lying idle on the handfc of the national Shipping Board. They are very bad ehipa for the most part, as tho chairman of the board has been frank to admit, having been built hurriedly for wax purposes by a nation that had no experience and only roughly Improvised facilities for building on euoh a Male, But if they should be bought by private owners part of them at least might form the nucleus of a new, Imposing mercantile marine, and the object of tho Subsidy Bill is to make them worth buying at a time when ship owning has hod fewest attractions for tho oldest practitioners of tho trade. Tho Government's fleet of 400 ships engaged on trade routes and a thousand lying idle means a loss now of fifty million doHara a year through tho ndmitted minor efficiency of Government management and in lay-up costs. If & subsidy to tho shipping industry of half that amount would encourage private companies to buy them, the bargain would bo a good ono for tho Government, ffhe argument is also used officially that a strong and various mercantile marine is required by America for tho supplementing of its navy, and made mono important for that purpose by tho Washington reduction of capital ships. It is not much that that reduction promisee to signify in the general search for means of circumventing it. It is pleaded further that an American mercantile marine must be specially subsidised, because, owing to the high rates of wages In tho United States, American ships cost much more both to build and man than those of other countries with which they would have to compete. The British Ambassador, charged by tho Hearst journals with so abusing his position, is not likely to pull strings to prevent the passage of tho Subsidy Bill, though a great American carrying business could only be developed at the expense of British trade. Congress may feel doubts, however, whether this particular business is suited to America.