AND SHIP NEWS In Northern Africa the French Line performs a ser- toward providing adequate protection for our ships in vice at once unique and complete, with great numbers of foreign trade. The proposed bill deserves careful study ships operating from ports of France to French ports and full discussion. in Northern Africa; with its more than a score of fine hotels in different African cities, most wonderful of all being the comfortable trips into the Great Sahara Desert by automobile-to a section of the world full of mystery and romance. A ticket bought in the New York offices of the French Line will take one to remote oases in the Sahara Desert constantly under the dependable care of this great line. Nor can one pass from the consideration of this superb steamship line without recalling that its freight service is even more extensive than its passenger service, its freighters carrying annually upwards of 2,000,000 tons of freight. By faithful service covering two full generations the French Line has won for itself the warm affection of many thousands of travellers, whose numbers steadily grow, because of the satisfaction they enjoy in a service afloat quite unsurpassed. Mr. Palen's Shipping Bill We are pleased to publish in this issue the bill prepared by Vice-President Palen, of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. The bill plans, as Mr. Palen makes very clear in his address before the Atlantic Coast Shipbuilders' Association, which remarks we also publish, through direct Government aid extended to our builders to effect marked reductions in overhead throughout the life of ships that should greatly faciltate the investment of private capital in them. While builders of ships are as important to the country as are owners of them, there must appeal to the owner, nevertheless, not only a reasonable profit from the operation of ships, but the return of the capital invested in them. If Congress could be induced to adopt a measure that directly committed the Government to a share in the cost of ships that would place their owners on an equality with foreign owners in construction cost, American should be much more willing than now to invest in such ships and operate them in foreign trade. The benefits the Government would enjoy from so sharing in their cost should be sufficient to cause Congress to look with favor upon the Palen bill. Merchant ships, no less than warships, are essential to the national defense, reason sufficient to justify governmental participation in the cost of vessels which the Government will be able to command, at their actual cost, whenever necessity for their national use arises. Mr. Palen is to be commended for thus bringing conspicuously before the country the important part that shipbuilders have in the upbuilding of an American merchant marine-a fact too often lost sight of in considering ways and means for their protection and maintenance in foreign trade. It will be interesting to note the attitude of shipowners. toward Mr. Palen's bill. They should be able to realize that the enactment of the Palen bill would go a long way Can The Government Dispose of Its Ships? Chairman O'Connor, of the United States Shipping Board, discussed with marine writers on June 2, his attitude toward the disposal of Government ships. He is much more concerned in having them taken over by private capital that will insure their greater efficiency by dieselizing them than he is in the sum the Government should receive for them. In that attitude he is unquesThese ships, it should never be fortionably sound. gotten, were not built primarily to restore an American merchant marine to the sea. Their construction was undertaken purely as a war measure, however little they may have been used for war purposes. The country should realize that the ships are a mere war remnant, and that to the extent that they can be salvaged, to that extent the Government will be at least partly reimbursed for a strictly war expenditure. It is not up to private American citizens to buy these ships and assume the losses the Government suffers in operating and maintaining them. The Government for more than half a century has side-stepped the adequate protection of American ships in foreign trade. It is right and proper that it should share a burden in American ship maintenance in foreign trade that will enable it to realize the handicap American owners of ships are under in operating ships in foreign trade without protection. And it should utilize the knowledge and experience thus gained in disposing of the ships to the best advantage -to the best advantage of the nation. Adequate protection for American ships in foreign trade is the only way that private American capital can be induced to invest in them. Mr. O'Connor, and his colleagues on the Shipping Board, can talk till doomsday about disposing of their ships, but until protection is extended to them, real, permanent, adequate protection, they will not be disposed of, except now and again, in rare and exceptional cases. The people should be educated to realize that protection is the essential remedy for the upbuilding and maintenance of American ships in foreign trade. All other schemes are mere expedients and serve only to befog the real remedy. A CARD The New York Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association, having among its membership some of the leading and oldest established firms in this profession, extends a hearty welcome and invitation to all other eligible concerns of the Freight Forwarding, Customs Brokerage and Freight Brokerage profession, our aim being to make it the most representative organization of its kind in the United States. Homer Ferguson to Fight for American Coastwise Carrying Veteran American Shipbuilder To Represent His Craft at Annual Homer L. Ferguson, president and general manager of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, and a former president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, will represent the American shipbuilding industry at the third biennial congress of the International Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, Belgium, June 21 to 28. Announcement was made recently by Clarence Samuel King, secretary of the Atlantic Coast Shipbuilders' Association, that Mr. Ferguson had accepted appointment as the official delegate of the shipbuilders' organization and would actively oppose the movement fostered abroad to lift American coastwise navigation restrictions. According to Mr. King, information has reached this country that British and Japanese delegates to the Brussels convention intend to seek pledges from the representatives of all maritime nations in a movement to compel every country to throw open its coastal trade to the vessels of every flag. The absence of mutuality in this proposal is shown by the fact that the coastwise commerce of Great Britain and Japan has no value compared with the extensive volume of traffic along the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific seacoasts of the United States. As the shipyards of the United States are today largely dependent for their existence upon the building of coastwise vessels, the shipbuilders were quick to act and are organizing a strenuous resistance to this hostile movement. In securing the consent of Mr. Ferguson to represent them in Brussels the shipbuilders feel that they are exceptionally fortunate in having a delegate who is familiar with the whole subject of United States shipping and shipbuilding, and who has the ability and force to successfully cope with those who would gain an entrance into the protected coastal and intercoastal trade of this country. Big Delegation of Americans Mr. Ferguson will not be required to stand alone at Brussels in his fight against this movement as all American steamship lines engaged in the coastwise trade have been aroused by the propaganda of foreign interests who would destroy the last vestige of our merchant marine. The Atlantic Coast Shipbuilders' Association is actively cooperating with the American Steamship Owners' Association, which will also be represented at the Brussels conference, and several prominent shipping men are included among more than 300 American business men who last month sailed for Europe on the American steamship George Washington, which carried the bulk of this country's delegates. It was stated by Mr. King that the steamship owners and shipbuilders of the United States have little apprehension that Congress will listen to any resolu tions that might be adopted in Brussels seeking the repeal of our coastwise laws, but they intend to make certain that no sinister action of this kind will be unanimous and they also intend to take an active part in any deliberations that may be construed as reflecting the international viewpoint. Thus far there has been no dissent on the part of anyone in this country from the advisability of continuing the policy of protection for our coastal trade. As a matter of fact, the protection of our coastwise trade has been so generally accepted that many persons and organizations have never felt the necessity of taking action affirmatively upon the subject. French Government Loan To Shipuilders A bill is to be introduced in the French Parliament providing for the establishment of a government or ganization empowered to advance funds to French shipbuilders, according to a report by David S. Green, assistant trade commissioer at Paris, and issued by the U. S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, which says: "A government organization empowered to advance. funds to French shipbuilders is proposed by the French Undersecretary of the Merchant Marine. Full details of his scheme are contained in a bill, which he is about to present to the French Parliament. This proposed organization will belong to the State and will be administered by a group of bankers, shipbuilders and engineers, designated by the State. It will make advances in the form of loans maturing in from two to ten years and repayable by fixed annuities. Total loans may amount to 150 million francs during the first year, to 300 million francs by the end of the second year, 400 million francs by the end of the third year and can increase 100 million francs during each year thereafter. Amortization must be important enough to prevent the total of advances from running over a billion francs. In no case can the loan amount to over 40 per cent of the value of completed ships and 60 per cent of the value of ships in construction, this 60 per cent being advanced from time to time as the work progresses. These loans will be a first mortgage on the ships and will be granted only on ships constructed in French yards. The Undersecretary is confident that his scheme will restore French yards to normal activity. According to his scheme the operating capital for the loan association will be procured from a light tax on merchandise and passengers entering or leaving France. Full details of the manner in which this loan will be collected are not contained in the Secretary's bill." In addition to the above-mentioned reports this bureau of the Department of Commerce has a communication from Robert P. Skinner, American Consul General at Paris, outlining in further detail the new French subsidy proposal, copies of which letter the bureau will furnish upon request. The Barrett Towing Line has purchased the Shipping Board tug Borro. The tug will be used by the Barretts for general duty in New York harbor. Pure Crane Molasses Co., of Liverpool and London, have ordered a 14,000 ton motorship from Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Ltd. The Pure Crane Molasses Co. has two similar vessels building at Middlesbrough by Furness Shipbuilding Co. AND SHIP NEWS "American Export Lines" New York and Philadelphia to French Mediterranean and West Coast Italy New York and Philadelphia to North African Ports Sailings 20th of Each Month Other Mediterranean or Adriatic ports will be combined in this New York to Greek, Black Sea Ports and Constantinople New York and Philadelphia to Malta, Alexandria, Syrian and Palestine Coast Sailings 10th and 25th of Each Month AMERICAN EXPORT LINES Operated For United States Shipping Board The French Line-One of the World's Greatest Steamship F Companies The Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, Operating Ships Between French Ports and the United States, Canada, England, Spain, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, in Africa; Mexico and Cuba, West Indies and Panama Canal, and South America. All Travelers First Plan to Visit France and Paris, the Wise Ones Breathing the Atmosphere and Acquiring the Point of View of the People of "La Belle France" by Traveling via the French Line. OR well over half a century the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, better known to globe trotters as The French Line, has successfully been operating its ships in transatlantic trade, its vessels in the trade with the United States always being of the highest type, and unsurpassed for their safety, speed, comfort, cuisine and luxury. In no part of the world in which ships are employed and where the French Line operates is the statement less true of its vessels, their character, their quality and their service. To travel to France by the French Line is to know France in advance of arriving there, and to return home again in its ships is to bring France with us to our very doors. French ways are as much the refined ways of the world a s French menus are the world's gastronom ic standards. French history is largely the world's his- proval than what has been said. Its ships employed in passenger and freight traffic are under propulsion of over half a million horsepow er. Over 475,000 passengers were carried on French Line boats during the past year. An inkling of the tremendous operations of the French Line may be gained from the fact that the yearly fuel bill is in excess of $5,000,000. The PARIS-Flagship of the Fleet-a floating bit of the city whose name she bears It is well to remember that, important as are the physical facts of the French Line, still more important is the The Grand Dining Salon of the PARIS is an artistic blending of mirrors, handwrought iron, inlaid polished wood and decorative crystal. The huge richly appointed bedroom of a two-room Suite de Luxe on the PARIS. Such a suite, with parlor, bedroom and bath, affords unusual privacy to those who desire it. |