Orders have just been placed in Glasgow shipyards for two ships each of 15,000 tons.

American Great Lake ships refuse to conform to Canadian law as to rate-filing; if adhered to it is likely to tie up vast quantities of Canadian grain at Port Arthur and Fort William on Lake Superior, or divert it to Duluth.

How to operate Shipping Board ships most economically is still a matter of great difficulty for the board to determine.

Ralph V. Sollitt, executive assistant to Chairman Farley of the Shipping Board has resigned to occupy a similar position with Albert D. Lasker, former Chairman of the Shipping Board.

Longshoremen have accepted an advance in wages that gives them 80 cents an hour, instead of 60, and from $1.07 to $1.20 for overtime. Presently they'll earn more than the ships they load and unload earn.

On October 1 the American schooner Oregon Pine was 116 days out from Newcastle, Australia, bound for Port Allen and Honolulu, being more than twice her usual time for such a run.

The White Star steamship Majestic, which left New York on Sept. 22, made the run to Southampton in 5 days, 11 hours and 13 minutes, a new record, her average hourly speed being 24.76 knots, and under ordinary conditions, says the International Mercantile Marine Company.

The White Star and the American lines will use joint terminal accommodations at Hamburg, as part of joint freight and passenger service between New York and Hamburg, announces the International Mercantile Marine Company.

The Savannah Line (Ocean Steamship Company) steamer City of Chattanooga, brand new from the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, arrived in New York on September 29. She is 401 feet long, 52 feet beam and 6,500 gross tons, with accommodations for 204 passengers.

The new municipal ferryboat Rodman Wanamaker, built by Staten Island Shipbuilding Company, had a successful trial trip on September 27, during which she maintained a speed of 15 knots, without any extraordinary effort.

Shipping Board vessels earned $4,437,639 in July and August, as compared with $3,308,809 in the corresponding period last year, an increase of 35 percent.

At the State Barge Canal Conference, at Syracuse, on Sept. 27, George Clinton, Sr., of Buffalo, announced his opposition to the international canalization of the St. Lawrence River ship canal and warmly expressed himself in favor of deepening the Hudson River to Albany.

Philadelphia has "loaned" $2,000,000 to its Department of Wharves and Ferries, to continue the work of erecting new wharves.

For the better accommodation of shipping the Hudson River Improvement Association will seek to obtain from Congress approval of a project for deepening the Hudson River channels in front of Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg, North Bergen and Edgewater. They want from 35 to 40 feet depth at mean low water, the cost of which will be likely to reach $20,000,000.

The Bronx plans to offer waterfront accommodations for coastwise steamship lines at 132nd Street and Lincoln Avenue, such as the Savannah, Clyde, Mallory and Morgan lines formerly enjoyed and which they purpose reoccupying.

The vast aggregation of gain elevators at Buffalo will be tested to the very limit of their capacity both for receiving and discharging grain during the next two months, with the probable result of a harbor full of grain-laden ship when navigation closes, and the elevators all bulging.

If only half the plans of the American Marine Association for its huge convention here early in November mature, it will then probably be the largest convention ever held in the United States for the consideration of an American shipping policy.

Frederick B. Adams and Edward R. Cochran, Jr., on September 26 were jointly appointed receivers for the Atlantic Fruit Company by Federal Judge Morris, sitting in Delaware. The receivership is declared to be a friendly proceeding, with the approval of the bondholders and stockholders' committee.

Tanker traffic through the Panama Canal during August exceeded by 25,000 the tonnage of either June of all and constituted 46 percent. of the net tonnage of all vessels passing through the canal during August, this year.

President Coolidge, it is said, is still open minded as to policy for the immediate and for the permanent maintenance of American ships in foreign trade.

The United States Ship Operators' Association seems to be making fair headway with the Shipping Board in the latter's consideration of the former's revised plan.

Shipping Board Commissioner Haney, of Oregon, believes American shipowners should seek to develop new trade routes, with South America and the Orient, rather than in the "congested" foreign-controlled transatlantic trade. Let's develop the best lines ever in both trades--in all trades!

When Canada makes laws to govern the filing of freight rates of American steamships, just because the latter help out in the grain rush to get Canadian grain from Lake Superior Canadian grain ports to tidewater, the Canadians go just a little too far.

The Dollar Line people are now being congratulated on having purchased from the Shipping Board seven ships for "about" $4,000,000 that it would cost $10,000,000 for them to build now, and which would require two years' time.

The outlook, at the moment, for "liberal immigration. laws" looks murky.

John Macmillan, general manager of the Shaw, Savill & Albion Steamship Company, owners of five pas senger and twenty-one cargo ships running between London and New Zealand, has just sailed for London, after declaring that New York is the most marvellous city he had ever seen. Besides which, said he, "there is no harbor in the world to compare with New York." Haven't we been saying so for years?

Much more plaza space will be required in both Manhattan and Jersey City for the accommodation of the traffic expected in the vehicular tunnel when completed three years from now. About a million and a half dollars will be necessary for the additional land required at both ends.

The trade between the United States and its insular possessions, including Alaska, has increased from $250,000,000 in value ten years ago to more than $500,000,000 in value in the year just closed.

The fourteenth annual convention of the New York State Waterways Association, held this year at Plattsburg, N. Y., on Sept. 7, declared for deep water in the Hudson clear to Albany, and for the early completion of the great Barge Canal terminal at Jamaica Bay, ordered by the people a dozen years ago.

The Dutch steamship Gemma is reported recently to have carried 424,000 bushels of grain from Galveston without the slightest difficulty-something over 12,000

tons.

A $400,000 corporation has just been formed in Deleware, called the Pittsburgh & Memphis Transportation Co., to operate boats and barges.

It seems to be decided that Army transports are to be converted into passenger and freight vessels to take the place of those in transatlantic trade that have just

been sold to the Dollar Line.

A vast amount of lumber will be carried across the Pacific during the ensuing year to help out Japan in her great task of rebuilding.

The unbroken progress of the work of building the Staten Island freight and passenger tunnel arouses the ire of Transit Commissioner Roy T. Harkness. He'd like the project stopped. But Staten Islanders would

not.

Admiral Charles P. Plunkett, U. S. N., addressing the American Legion, New York State Department, at Saratago last mid-month, added his voice to those of others in favor of a deeper Hudson River, clear to Albany.

It is sadder than words can express, the poignancy of the New York Journal of Commerce's grief anent the inability of American ships to make headway upon the

seas.

If one company cannot develop Bayonne's waterfront into an incomparable marine terminal, there are others standing in line ready to undertake it.

The Transmarine Corporation seems to be bothering the other lines-nearly a score of them-engaged in intercoastal trade, which the Transmarine Line is convinced are not loyally holding to their "Conference" obligations.

Chairman Farley, of the United States Shipping Board, was quoted the other day as saying, among other things: "My aim will be to institute the strictest economy and obtain the most efficient service, and especially do I desire to encourage those who have by their ownership of American ships expressed their faith in the future of the American merchant marine."

The New York Tribune declares that completed plans for 37 ships are now held up in the United States, for coastwise and canal trade, until costs of materials and labor in shipbuilding come out of the clouds and reach the earth.

The new Philadelphia Ocean Traffic Bureau, supported by the City of Philadelphia and other large interests in that ambitious port, seems to be justifying its existence and making good according to the purposes of its founders, by diverting traffic from other ports to Philadelphia.

After a few more American transatlantic lines have initiated an intercoastal service, what's to hinder them from following the Dollar Line's initiative, all the way und the world, and make America's new merchant marine famous as a world girdler?

Postmaster General New avers that the British Government unvaryingly puts westbound mails on British ships "without any regard whatever to the time required for transmission to the United States or to the time of sailing of American ships." That seems to be specific enough to draw a rejoiner from cousin J. B.

The Lamp, kept burning by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, declares that of 1,119,145 tons of inter coastal traffic shipped from Los Angeles to Atlantic and Gulf ports during the first quarter of the current

It is stated that the Argentine Government will send to this country for reconditioning its two battleships Rivadavia and Moreno, to defray the expense of which $9,500,000 gold pesos has been appropriated. Who'll get it?

Chairman Farley, seemingly to everybody's satisfaction, has allowed himself to be elected President of the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation. This will cause a broadening of the du ties of Vice-President Sidney Henry, to include the administrative and statistical departments, the personnel division, and the department of investigation and the field forces, in short, those of general manager.

"One in high authority," evidently at Bayonne, declares that "the rejection by the Bayonne Board of Commissioners of the proposition for the $150,000,000 marine terminal made by the New York Port Terminal Company can hardly pave the way for the submission of another plan to the same body," because the terminal company owns all the waterfront between the Standard Oil plant and the long dock of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Reason enough.

United States exporters are losing European customers, lugubriously lament the free traders, but they are gaining new ones in other parts of the world pipes up the optimistic protectionists. So that's that.

Some day, in its own way, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment will consider its duty in connection with the establishment of a publicity bureau for the Port of New York, so 'tis said.

Did anyone ever hear that one Nelson B. Killmer is an advocate of a great subport at Jamaica Bay, at which the largest Barge Canal terminal in the Port of New York is eventually to be located?

"French want big ship subsidy," declares the headlines of a local commercial newspaper. Well, they are likely to get it, too, if they need it.

It is said that there are 80 miles of docks in the Port of London. And there are over 700 miles of waterfront in the Port of New York.

"Get rid of the ships," says an unsympathetic editorial in the New York Evening Post, on September 27. Oh, no; it was not referring to foreign ships entering and leaving our ports. It would sell or junk all of the Government-owned ships, so as to get rid of the appalling expense. Yes, yes.

"An urgent ship problem," it seems to be to the New York Journal of Commerce, in reflecting upon the American merchant marine and the vociferousness of the demand that, somehow, some way, the Government permanently establish it in foreign trade. The Journal of Commerce would solve it by allowing foreign ships to do all our foreign carrying. How easy!

Dwight B. La Du, State Engineer and Surveyor, declares that the Barge Canal isn't used enough. So say we, all of us. The reason is clear. The state should

the advantages shippers may derive through a more general use of the State's great system of improved waterways-unequalled in the world. "Its the only

way."

J. Harry Mull, president and general manager of the Wm. Cramp & Son, Ship & Engine Building Company, of Philadelphia, heads a committee of shipbuilders who will make a survey of shipbuilding problems with a view to formulating recommendations that will insure a permanent future for American shipbuilding. More power to him, and to them. The finding of this committee will be presented to the American Marine Congress, to be held here November 5-10, 1923.

Sale of Government Ships to Dollars Around-The-World American Passenger and Freight Steamship Service to Be Furnished by the Dollar Line On September 12 Chairman Farley of the United States Shipping Board announced the sale of seven combination freight and passenger ships, known as the 502type, to the Dollar Line, of San Francisco. While it has not been officially stated what the price was, it is generally believed to have been around $4,000,000 for the seven vessels. It is expected service will be begun around the world in the late Fall. Chairman Farley further says:

The around-the-world service, starting at San Francisco will touch at Japan, China, Philippines, Java, Straits Settlements, Singapore, India, through the Suez, Egypt, Mediterranean ports to New York, thence through the Panama Canal to home. By arrangement with the Board, this service is guaranteed for five years. This will be the first round-the-world service of this kind that has been inaugurated, for while the Dollar Company is maintaining freight boats on this service today, there are no other ships now in a continuous service around the world under any flag.

The Shipping Board is of the belief that this service will be of great value to American travelers and merchants, and it will have the full support of the Board in its effort to build up an American merchant marine.

These ships were built by the New York Shipbuilding Company and are of 10,533 gross tons register and 6,195 tons net, five of them being now operated from New York to London. These will be supplanted by other fast freight ships. The passenger accocmodations to London will of course be greatly augmented next year by the capacity of the new Republic, ex-President Grant, now bein reconditioned at Newport News. The other two ships of the seven sold are being operated from the west

coast of the United States to the east coast of South

America. These also will be supplanted by other vessels.

The first line to be sold by the Shipping Board as a result of their advertisement of April 28, 1923, and for which negotiations have been in progress, were two ships to the Grace line, which will be supplemented by their own vessels and operated from the west coast of North America to the west coast of South America. This service is guaranteed for five years. These vessels were the Rotarian and the Orcus, both cargo vessels of about 7,500 Shipbuilding Company of Tacoma, and completed in tons each. They were built by the Todd Drydock and

1920.

Instead of being the dearest port in the world New York could be made the cheapest-but only through real united cooperation of those most interested.