Mr. Herbermann plans to bring more Egyptian cotton direct to the United States in his ships, to bring more currants from Greece, to bring more of the products of Mediterranean countries to the United States, and to increase steadily the sales of American products in countries tributary to the ports of the Mediterranean. His mind is focused upon building up a great and mutually prosperous trade between the United States and Mediterranean countries. The ways and means of doing so are constantly being studied by his agents at home and abroad, by his staff, by the officers of his steamships, and by his Government-and the results of these studies and the suggestions growing out of them, are constantly being reviewed by Mr. Herbermann, no way of accelerating the movements of his ships, especially in port, increasing business and decreasing cost, being unavailed of. Mr. Herbermann believes that exporters will use American ships more and more, as the permanency of our ships in international trade becomes more and more assured; the same of many importers; he has always believed that American railroads will yet become potential factors in the upbuilding, expansion and maintenance of an American merchant marine, because there are no freight get ters and no freight distributors in all the world that compare with American railroads. As a post graduate in railroad operation and traffic handling there is no man better fitted than he to indissolubly link our railroads with our steamships in the development of international trade. He has the same thought with respect to all other American methods of production and transportation especially such producers as have a surplus for export, and particularly domestic steamship and steamboat lines, motor trucks everything American that can contribute to the upbuilding of commerce and the prosperous and permanent success of American shipping it is Mr. Herbermann's aim to have availed of to the uttermost.

To Restore Our Former Maritime Greatness While Henry Herbermann is a host in himself, with but little more than a firm foothold upon the threshold of a successful career as an American steamship man, a round dozen of men like him-who are coming along, already their heads are sticking up higher and higher above the crowd-reasonably backed by our Government and loyally sustained by American business men, will speed the day when American shipping in foreign trade will again carry the great bulk of our ever-increasing imports and exports, just as it did during the first half of our national existence, when American ships, their owners, managers, officers and crews were unequalled in all the world.

If Congress agrees to the recommendation of the Budget Bureau to cut the appropriation for the Shipping Board and Fleet Corporation to $15,300,000, or $8,700,000 below the current year's appropriation, can the present Shipping Board service be maintained unimpaired? Most people in the shipping business say no.

Captain Robert Dollar Here on His Fifth Round-the-World Trip

Captain Robert Dollar, 82 years of age, and operator of a big fleet of American merchant craft, came back to New York, from his sixth trip around the world, on the Dollar liner President Garfield, firmly convinced that the pioneer service around the world which he established more than a year ago, is here to stay. Despite his age, Captain Dollar is the most active executive in the steamship company which he heads. With the enthusiasm and spirit of a newly appointed salesman, he personally interviews shippers abroad, seeking trade for his ships. On the voyage around the globe which he is making with Mrs. Dollar, he interviewed 287 foreign merchants. In most cases he was successful in obtaining business. Said he:

"To keep a business running, you have got to be active all the time."

With the optimism of a youngster he said he looked forward to greater accomplishments during the next 15 or 20 years. Lack of interest of Congress in the past, he said, had left the great American shipping field to the mercy of foreign companies. He added: "There are signs now that Congress is awakening to the need of a merchant marine, and hearing is now being given to American shipowners. But we will never to able to operate with the most of success until laws more favorable to shipowners are adopted. If the Seamen's Act were to be enforced in its entirety, not an American ship could sail tomorrow night. We cumbrances to the success of the American merchant have too many laws which have been enacted as enmarine. I hope now that Congress will see its way clear to give us some aid."

Captain Dollar urged that the maritime law which makes it mandatory that seamen be paid one-half the wages due them, whenever they touch a foreign port, be repealed.

In his talk with newspaper men, Captain Dollar expressed opinion that the grounding of the liner President Garfield on Half Moon Shoal, off Nantucket, was partly due to the large amount of cargo being carried by the vessel.

Captain Dollar will remain in New York about ten days and then proceed to San Francisco.

Dollar Line Buys Four Lake Type Ships The Fleet Corporation sold four Lake type ships to R. Stanley Dollar, of San Francisco, on August 26th for $115,000. The ships are the Lake Onawa, of 4,225 and Lake Farrar, each of 4,155 tons. The Lakers were deadweight tons, and the Lake Gitano, Lake Gilben withdrawn as feeders for the government's freight ships operating in Oriental waters and laid up in the Far East.

The boats will be used in the Orient by the Dollar company as feeders for their round-the-world service and the other tonnage operating in the Oriental trade.

At an auction sale last month in the Municipal Building, the Department of Plant and Structures sold the following ferryboats: Harlem, to Coan G. Huggins, 80 Broad Street, for $1,200; Shinnecock and Columbia, to William Walser, 633 Bergenline Avenue, West New York, N. J., for $1,000 each, and Whitehall, to New Castle-Pennsville Ferries, Inc., of Newcastle, Del., for $14,100.

THE

The Greatness Thrust Upon Newark Our leading article this month, by P. H. W. Ross, Trade Consultant of the City of Newark, New Jersey, describes how greatness has been thrust upon that city, and the commendable alertness of the people of Newark under Mayor Raymond's astute leadership in making the most of their opportunities to win greatness in port development.

Newark possesses an extensive waterfront on Newark Bay and the Passaic River, with conditions favoring unlimited development upon the bay. The Federal Government, whose usual function it is to enlarge and deepen navigable channels was too slow in doing it at Newark, and so Newark so deepened her own channel as to permit great ocean steamships freely to dock at Port Newark at any stage of the tide. Newark possesses the great advantage of being able to transfer freight from railroad car to ship's holds, and vice versa, without trans shipment, because of facilities it has had provided at

Port Newark. Almost all of the great railroads entering the Port of New York may avail of Newark's efficient and economical facilities, and more and more they are doing so, to their mutual advantage.

Frobably close to ten million dollars has been spent by the City of Newark to win the port greatness it has achieved. No wonder port greatness is thrust upon such a daringly progressive and eminently deserving city. Newark sees greatness in furnishing adequate accommodations for a shipping that the City of New York is all too indifferent and neglectful of. Thus Newark helps to preserve the prestige of the great Port of New York that might be irretrievably impaired if its preservation depended wholly upon the imperial "wonder" city, whose greatest diadem is its shipping and its commerce.

We urge our readers to study Mr. Ross's well presented article and always remember that Newark is as progressive as Greater New York is retrogressive in port development. Greater New York might well take a leaf out of Newark's book!

Was the Steamboat Mackinac Inspected?

The local inspectors of steam vessels at this port issued a certificate to the steamboat Mackinac declaring that they had "completed the inspection of the vessel," a statement based upon written reports by assistant inspectors who declared that they had "examined for inspection" a vessel they are not authorized by law to inspect, but whose examination constituted the only inspection made prior to the issuance of her certificate. The boiler of the Mackinac exploded last month in Rhode Island water and resulted in the death of 51 persons.

There is no actual legal inspection of steam vessels in this port. It is physically impossible for the inspectors who are required by law to do so to make the inspection, a situation that is met by an affidavit by the responsible inspectors that they completed the inspection of the vessel that they probably never saw. Assistant inspectors who are probably quite competent to inspect vessels are appointed, and in this port they make the only actual inspections made, but who officially report that they merely "examined for inspection" the vessels. Opinions of Government law officers declare assistants may not legally inspect. This official rigamarole is all too likely to lead to leniency in the inspections, and what regard can there be for law by officers who daily commit technical perjury the effect of which is to perpetuate a law impossible of enforcement?

Manifestly the law should lodge responsibility for inspections in the men who actually inspect-whose "examination for inspection" is the only inspection made. No inspectors should be required or permitted to swear that they have "completed the inspection" of vessels they have never seen. The present impossible requirements of the law governing inspections of steam vessels at this port, evaded by false affidavits of inspections never made, should be remedied by Congress at the earliest possible

moment.

Does This Express British Sentiment?

The Liverpool Journal of Commerce, a great British daily largely devoted to maritime and commercial affairs, and hitherto a supposedly sane and truthful publication, bursts forth in a recent issue in an untruthful tirade against the United States, regarding matters so well known to all the world, as to cause us to wonder if it is not a victim of dog-day madness, in which the United States looked red to it? The paper in question was discussing Henry Ford's purchase of Shipping Board ships for junking, asserting that "this Henry Ford will take over shortly anything from 800,000 to 1,000,000 tons of useless shipping, and the whole world will feel the benefit." The exaggeration as to the tonnage Mr. Ford will buy we will let pass. Commenting further, the Liverpool Journal of Commerce declares that, "now that a start has been made, there does not seem to be any reason why the remainder of the idle U. S. state-owned ships should not pass into private ownership. They could then be broken up if useless or worked on ordinary lines if suitable, and employment could be found for them." Then it proceeds to make this utterly untruthful and vicious. misstatement regarding the United States, and its motives for building its vast fleet of merchant ships:

This ill-starred shipping enterprise was obviously aimed at Great Britain. The United States thought this country would crawl out of the Unspeakable War badly crippled, and that the British world-wide shipping and coal trade would be an easy plum to pick.

Every one knows, and the Liverpool Journal of Commerce must know, that the "ill-starred shipping enterprise" of the United States was undertaken purely and simply to save Great Britain and her allies from defeat by the Germans. What this country never could have been induced to do, in the way of restoring an American merchant marine to the seas, for economic reasons, it was glad to do and did do to save the British nation. A great cry went up from Great Britain, really a despairing cry, for more and more ships, to which this nation responded most generously at a cost to our people of close to four billion dollars. We are sure there never for a moment was in the mind of President Wilson, his advisers or the Congress, the idea of aiming to take advantage of Great Britain's distress and frightful losses to go after "British world-wide shipping and coal trade," believing that it "would be an easy plum to pick," or for any other reason than to heartily help the British nation.

We can understand British apprehension that the fleet of merchant ships its preservation from destruction called. into being may be so availed of by the United States as to restore it to its rightful place upon the seas, and that British ships, which for many years had been our largest carriers, may permanently lose, as a consequence. We çan understand, too, that Great Britain will do everything in her power to preserve unimpaired her great maritime industry and prestige, but we would not have believed that a great daily organ supposedly reflecting current British opinions, would resort to such a monstrous

We make one more quota

untruth as we have quoted.
tion, following that already made:

But British grit and British brains have not yet been defeated. This country alone of the Allics has made terms with the United States and settled her war debt. Britain has withstood all at tacks made upon her shipping position. The United States, by selling her ships as junk to Mr. Ford, has had to admit defeat. Great Britain is still the leading shipping power, and Great Bri tain intends to hold that position.

In what way does our sale of ships to Henry Ford "admit defeat?" Defeat of what? Our alleged attempt to capture British world-wide shipping and coal trade? Has the United States sought to defeat "British grit and British brains?" Is it in such an attempt that we have "had to admit defeat?" Does the Liverpool Journal of Commerce really believe that? Does it reflect British opinion in saying it?

The United States possesses a vast and growing foreign commerce, and, wholly as an incident, the Government itself happened to acquire a fleet of ships large enough to do practically all of our foreign carrying, a fleet of which it cannot rid itself because it lacks the moral courage to protect our ships in foreign trade against foreign competition, a fleet which, therefore, it is utilizing to build up American steamship lines along the great trade routes of the world, awaiting the time when private American capital will see a profit in those lines and acquire and continue them, a hope we regard as utterly futile so long as protection is withheld from our ships in foreign trade. Should our regard for Great Britain go to the length of disposing of this vast fleet of merchant vessels in such a manner as to restore to British ships a continuation of the great bulk of the carrying of our imports and exports, such as they enjoyed before the world war? Do sane Britons, with whose huge losses we sympathize, and whose gameness we cannot help but admire, believe that we should do that?

The New New York-Miami Service

J. T. Danaher, recently appointed passenger agent of the Admiral Line for New York, in connection with the New York-Miami service, arrived here on August 29 to take charge of the company's offices at 604 Fifth Avenue.

The Admiral liner H. F. Alexander will make her first trip from New York to Miami on October 22. She is now engaged in Pacific coastwise service. Her record Atlantic trip was made as an army transport during the war.

"Steamship travel to Florida promises to exceed all previous records this season," said Mr. Danaher. "We already have been flooded with inquiries on our new From present indications the H. F. Alexander will sail with capacity lists."

service.

The H. F. Alexander is 525 feet long, 60 feet breadth and a draft of 50 feet. She is a one-class vessel with accommodations for 523 first-class passengers. has a speed of 24 knots, which will enable her to make the New York-Miami run in forty-eight hours.