the taxes paid New York State and the United States. Under normal conditions, the shipyards of the Port of New York employ approximately 15,000 employees and pay a total yearly wage of not less than $21,620,000.

I arrive at that sum by taking 60 cents as the average hourly wage, $4.80 as the average daily wage, and $1440 as the average yearly wage of each employee, which sum of $1440 multiplied by 15,000 employees makes a total yearly wage of $21,620,000, all of which is spent in the Port of New York.

Protection Voted For Our Ships

The Republican members of the Finance Committee voted to exempt American vessels from the Panama Canal tolls, all but one of them had voted to extend Government aid to American ships in the foreign trade. All of them had voted to extend the coastwise laws to our overseas possessions. Most of them had voted for the amendment to the Underwood Tariff Act giving imported foreign products a five per cent rebate if carried in American bottoms. These men joined with me in extending the same consideration to the American worker in the shipyards. I am opposed to the repeal of the law. It may be possible to modify it somewhat, but the big thing we can do here in New York and in all of the sea ports of America is to begin now, today, agitating the enacting of legislation providing for the sale of all Government-owned ships. Let us get this industry back into the hands of private ownership and then begin a nation-wide struggle to convince the Senators and Representatives

in Congress from the South and the Middle West that the interest of America lies in helping to maintain and develop the carrying trade of the United States in private hands.

A Practical Suggestion

Let me make a suggestion that in my opinion if properly presented may be worked out successfully, at the next session of Congress. We are going to pass a new tax law next winter. This bill will materially reduce corporation and income taxes levied by the Federal Government. Let me suggest that you begin a united effort to have incorporated in this new law a provision exempting from all federal income taxes the profits of a company operating American vessels when let us say fifty per cent of those profits are invested in the building of new ships. That policy was begun in the passage of the Jones Shipping Law in 1920. I am confident that with a proper presentation of the subject an amendment of this character will have a splendid chance of favorable action. If your organization and others of like character determine to make a real fight for this legislation you can depend upon me to help.

Vice-President Palen's Sound Sense

Commenting on Senator Calder speech, Vice-President Frank P. Palen, of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, made the following commendatory statement:

You asked me for an expression of opinion on former Senator Wm. M. Calder's speech before the Propeller Club on the subject of "Protection for the Ship Repairer."

It is needless for me to say that I concur in Mr. Calder's remarks. If the builders of machinery in the United States are justly protected by a tariff why should not the ship repairers likewise be protected by the United States? Is not the ship repair industry as

justly entitled to protection as any other industry? In principle, I know of no reason why the ship repair industry should not be protected just as much as any other industry that is protected under our present laws. If there is a just reason why it should not be protected I trust someone will bring it to my attention.

No one believes that the workmen in the ship repair industry should work for a lower wage than the workmen in other industries in the United States and no one expects that they will. If this is so, no one with a knowledge of the industry expects that ship repairs can be done as cheaply in the United States as in Countries where workmen receive a lower wage. To my mind the problem is very clear and in case other industries receive protection from the Government of the United States the ship repair industry is entitled to the same treatment, and in case the ship repair inof the United States all other industries in fairness dustry is put on a free trade basis by the Government should likewise be put on a free trade basis.

In fact, I am of the opinion that if all protection for the United States was abolished that the ship repair industry would then have an equal chance with the other industries of the United States and could survive.

H. G. Smith, Vice-President Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation for Protection

I have read Senator Calder's speech before the Propeller Club in behalf of protective shipping laws. Am much interested in noting his reasons for favoring a tariff duty on American ships repaired in foreign countries. Shipbuilding is one of the few industries in this country that has not been afforded protection through our tariff laws and such protection is needed to assist in maintaining our ship repair yards as an important asset of the country in time of emergency.

All Government Ships For Sale

All the ships now owned by the Shipping Board are for sale, Chairman O'Connor declared in an address before the National Marine Engineers' Benefificial Association in convention in Washington some time ago. But he added the price must present an advantage to both the buyer and the seller.

"There are those who say, let the United States Government get out of the shipping business," Mr. O'Connor said, "and leave its ocean commerce to the great and unfailing law of supply and demand. This law of supply and demand, however, got an awful jolt in 1914 and 1915. There was a big demand in Europe for cotton and a tremendous supply in our Gulf States, but the cotton lay on the wharves and went down to 7c a pound.

"There were vessels enough to carry it, but the selfinterest of warring nations needed the ships in other places and the planter and farmer of the South suffered. When relief did come, it came from Ameircan ships built for emergency at emergency prices and at enormous expense."

Harrison S. Colburn Company Moves
To Hudson Terminal

Harrison S. Colburn Company have moved to the Hudson Terminal Building, 30 Church Street, New York City. For the past five years they have been at 90 West Street. The new quarters are considerably larger and were made necessary by the rapid expansion of the business of this company.

THE

The feature article of this issue of THE PORT OF NEW YORK AND SHIP NEWS, which is copiously illustrated, shows what the New York Central Railroad means in the development of the Port of New York and in helping it to maintain its primacy among world ports.

Only the City of New York owns more of Manhat tan's waterfront than does the New York Central Railroad, and it is constantly in intensive use, as the article will show; and its ownership is chiefly where waterfront is in greatest demand-on the North River. But it has piers on the East River, as the illustrations graphically show, and even in the Wallabout Basin of Brooklyn. Over on the west shore of the Hudson River, at Weehawken, again the New York Central is the largest waterfront owner.

The New York Central Railroad is the only one whose freight tracks enter Manhattan, running from the extreme northerly end of the island at Spuyten Duyvil down the west side to St. Johns Park, just below Canal

Street. In addition to its main line, the New York Central has other lines, the Harlem Division running to Brewster, straight north from Manhattan, and its great West Shore line, ending at Weehawken. It has 164.24 miles of railroad tracks on Manhattan Island, and with 58 miles of trackage in Weehawken its track mileage has a grand total of 222 miles in the Port of New York. A thousand cars of freight are handled daily by this company on Manhattan Island alone. Its water frontage in Greater New York totals 30 piers. Its Marine Department, under the able management of Walter B. Pollock, includes 316 vessels of various types, and in that department alone 1500 men are employed. At the present time 31 vessels are under construction for the New York Central Railroad for operation in New York Harbor. This railroad alone handled over 21,000,000 passengers through the Grand Central Ter· minal. One-third of all the railroad tonnage delivered on Manhattan Island is brought over the rails of the New York Central.

What would the Port of New York be without its great railroad trunk lines? Governmental treatment of railroads, today, restricts their development. Inevitably such restriction curtails the growth of the commerce of the Port of New York-but who ever thinks of that?

The railroads are the greatest single factor in the development of the Port of New York, ships being secondary. The New York Central Railroad probably brings into and takes from the Port of New York more freight than all of the steamships in foreign trade land here and carry away from here.

It is time that the importance of the railroads in re spect to Port of New York development and welfare should be better understood and appreciated by the people.

President Coolidge Considers Shipping

Toward the end of last month the shipping world of America was excited because the newspapers declared that President Coolidge was looking indulgently toward ship subsidies as the possible solution of our shipping problem. He was quoted as saying that he would be glad to consider suggestions along subsidy lines; but he also said that he wasn't suggesting their immediate consideration by Congress, maybe in a year or two or three. The country has had a surfeit of subsidy discussion that got it nowhere, and President Coolidge presided over the Senate while the subject was debated in that body.

Later on the President was said to look with less favor on subsidies; some of his close advisers told him the American people would not stand for them, that they were an impossibility. The record of the advocacy of ship subsidy legislation the past quarter of a century justifies such advice.

It is good to know that the President's mind considers the American shipping problem. He is known

THE

HE writing of this article was inspired by the recent enactment of the Nicolls-Hofstadter Bill, which prevents the building of a freight tunnel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, by the New York State Legislature.

Freight transportation is the blood of commercial life. In this modern age, we who live in urban communities depend upon it for our food, our clothing and all the necessities of life. We are equally dependent upon it for our comfort, since without it we could not obtain the materials for our buildings, the fuel to keep them warm, or anything else conducive to our physical welfare. Without it we could not procure the materials upon which we work, the tools we work with, or any of the other things necessary to enable us to earn a livelihood. The economic and expeditious movement of freight is just as essential to our welfare as the proper coursing of the blood through our arteries.

Distinctive Advantages of Water and Rail
Transportation

The movement of freight by water is the cheapest form of transportation between places far apart, and the best for those commodities for which delay in transit is not harmful. Movement by rail is the best and cheapest for relatively short hauls and even for long hauls for those commodities which will spoil in transit, or are needed quickly. Sometimes both kinds of transportation are available, sometimes only one or the other. Where there is a choice that kind which is best shoud be used, as any thing which quickens the arteries of commerce promotes the prosperity of the community.

Handicaps of Long Islanders

The inhabitants of the insular area, known as Long Island, are located principally in two boroughs of New York City-Brooklyn and Queens. The residents of islands always begin with water transportation, but, when close enough to the mainland, are generally connected with it by bridges or tunnels as the population and business increase to a point where such connection is warranted. If the island growth is sufficiently large, such connections become indispensable.

Hence Brooklyn and Queens have been connected with Manhattan by one railroad bridge and numerous passenger tunnels. None of these, however, are of benefit in overcoming the one serious handicap to their growth and prosperity, which is the lack of a direct rail connection with the trunk line railroads in New Jersey, over which 95 per cent of their freight is received or despatched. With their marvelous waterfront these two boroughs have wonderful facilities for receiving material from and despatching their products to the four corners of the earth, that is, except to the one place of which they form a part and for which they are both a good customer and a good source of supply, the balance of the United States. For export service by water their natural shipping facilities are unsurpassable; for domestic service by rail their present facilities are miserable. Practically all of their rail freight is received or sent out by the antiquated and costly method of using lighters and car floats with the transfers and delays incident to the use of such facilities. Add to this the interruptions to commercial activity, and the hardships, and even at times suffering, incident to the prolonged delays caused by ice in times of continued cold in the Winter, and by harbor strikes, and we have a condition which would not be tolerated in any other community or similar size in the United States, if it could be remedied.

Tunnel Connection With New Jersey Imperative The Borough of Brooklyn, considered by itself, contains more than two million people, or about one-fourth of the total number residing in the so-called port district, which includes practically all of the commuting area in New Jersey, as well as a large portion of Long Island and Westchester County. At the present rate of increase, its population will be doubled in thirty years, and it will then be a community of four million people whose freight problem will be infinitely more serious than it is at present, if it is still dependent upon water transportation, as its growth must necessarily be farther and farther away from the present waterfront. The Borough of Queens is in exactly the same situation except that, while smaller, its growth is even more rapid than that of Brooklyn. That the solution of the freight problem of these two boroughs lies in the building of tunnels, which will give them a direct rail connection to New Jersey, at the earliest possible moment, is hardly debatable.

Reasons Why Tunnels Are Lacking

There are five reasons why these boroughs have not been connected with a tunnel or tunnels to New Jersey, of which two are fundamental, and three are secondary:

The first of the fundamental reasons is the fact that they form a part of the greatest city in the United States, a city so large and so active that its citizens are so accustomed to seeing big things happen in which they have had no personal part, and so engrossed in their own affairs, which form so small a part of the total life of the community, that they have little time and less inclination to bother about what might be called their civic business or civic duties.

The second fundamental reason is the fact that they have never been freight, but have always been passengers. If they could just for once have been the "Mr. Potato" in the moving picture film made for the Port Authority a few years ago, and had to spend more time and money in getting from the railroad yard in Jersey City to their destination in Brooklyn or Queens, than in coming from Chicago to Jersey City, a tunnel to New Jersey would have been built long ago.

The three secondary reasons for the non-existence of a tunnel, or at least of a tunnel project, are financial, political and legal. The financial reason is of course the fact that a tunnel will cost a considerable sum of money, and up to the present time the railroads entering Jersey City have shown no inclination to build such a tunnel, nor has there been any other means for obtaining the money necessary to do so, except through the city project killed at the last session of the Legislature.

The political reason lies in the ever existent conflict between the Republicans and the Democrats in the City of New York, and between the one-half of the voters of New York State who live in the City, and the other half who live in the balance of the State, which results in the interjection into the consideration of any new project. of many elements which have little or nothing to do with the merits of the project itself.

Greater New York vs. The Port Authority The legal reason lies in the fact that the civic affairs of New York City, in so far as these affect the development and improvement of the port facilities, are in the hands of two bodies, one of which is the municipal administration of the city and the other is the body known as the Port of New York Authority, which is appointed (Continued on Page 24)