That day is here with a vengeance and the coal is not obtainable at any price, either from the wicked exploiters who have been thwarted or through the agencies of a far seeing Government that has saved the coal while the people freeze. For this famine Congress alone is responsible and a real investigation would disclose this fact along with the correlated fact that by thus holding back this vast supply it has directly played into the hands of the socalled coal barons and made it possible for price extortion to be practised, at some point along the line, previous to the establishment of the National Fuel Administration.

Were such an investigation to be made, the responsibility of Congress for our shortage of ships, at a time when they were most vitally needed, would be rendered very clear. The time consumed would probably make it impossible to transact any other business, and the shortage of machine guns under the War Department administration would sink into relative insignificance. Secretary Daniels and the Navy Department would likewise find themselves terribly neglected. We might even find that it was comparatively unimportant to ascertain why it is that the Committee on Public Information requires a staff of 150 people and a weekly payroll of more than $10,000 to distribute to the public what the daily press of the country would gladly distribute for nothing.

All of these things would appear of even lesser importance by the side of that greater and more purposeful inquiry into the fundamental causes of our ship shortage that, in turn, have made necessary another great war activity in addition to those that were inevitable and a two-billion-dollar expenditure which itself seemed to call for investigation. Such an investigation would disclose why it is that Congress has persistently and consistently for sixty years steadily driven American ships out of existence or under foreign flags and made their further construction an enterprise

so hazardous that shipbuilding has almost ceased to be an industry among our people.

The investigation of the work of the United States Shipping Board was direct and to the point and brought out expressions of satisfaction of the work accomplished under trying difficulties. It did not, however, disclose clearly whether or not we shall be able to meet the demand of the Allies for 6,000,000 tons of ships in 1918. The program of the Shipping Board is known. It is known that this Board had let contracts for the construction of 1,151 ships on October 1, last, and was negotiating for 199 more, these having a gross tonnage of 7,658,708. Under its requisition of steel ships of over 2,500 tons under construction the Board became possessed of 413 ships in various stages of completion with a total tonnage of 2,937,808 tons, and of these 33, with a tonnage of 257,575 have been completed and delivered. The Board estimates that all of these will be completed within 18 months. For the completion of the new ships ordered we have and can have nothing more than the expressed conviction of Chairman Hurley that not less than 6,000,000 tons will be completed within one year from now because "whatever the American people set out to do they accomplish."

Frankly, we could wish for a more definite assurance, and based upon something more tangible than patriotic belief. The task is a tremendous one. Great Britain, the premier ship building country of the world, in the year of the greatest accomplishment, which was 1913, launched 1,920,000 tons of merchant shipping. That it will exceed that amount in 1916 by something like 18 per cent is a tribute to the ship-building genius of Great Britain. The United States, unequipped with ship-building plants to the necessary number, with a scarcity of skilled ship-builders owing to our long retirement from that field of industry and with serious labor disturbances on our hands at this time, but with an infinity of resources-mate

rial, and temperamental-is expected to exceed Great Britain's record three-fold. Seriously, we entertain doubts that all of this will be accomplished, though we do not join with those who predict virtually a complete failure for our ship-building program.

The "Patriotic Education Society," Inc., has, at considerable pains, undertaken to show the country that instead of the 6,000,000 ships promised, the best that may be expected is about 1,500,000 tons. In its press the statement which has been accorded considerable favor in the matter of reprinting it says:

"It is doubtful if, without marked change of conditions, the new Government-built yards will turn out a single ship in 1918.” This estimate, the statement adds, is based on a careful investigation of the facts and is approved by leading authorities on the subject in the United States.

"Even present tonnage, according to the Society, is not being used to capacity owing to the congestion of freight on the docks, failure to provide proper storage and lighter facilities and neglect of the nation's transportation facilities, including inland waterways and automobile roads."

The Society charges the Emergency Fleet Corporation with failure to accomplish the first steps of its work, partly because of official red-tape and bureaucratic methods and partly because of the ill health of Admiral Capps, who has since resigned. It urges Americans to stop indulging in optimistic phrases, to abandon the "Damn it, smile" attitude and to think in terms of transportation, labor output and ships' tonnage. We think that Americans can do the latter and still smile and we do not think that long faces are a necessary part of accomplishment. Yet there is sound sense in what follows in this propaganda statement:

"In no other field of our war efforts is there greater need for business management, for co-ordination, than in handling our

transportation question. The situation calls. for radical action. The Chairman of our Shipping Board should be vested with the powers of a dictator, similar to those conferred by Great Britain upon her Minister of Shipping. His should be the last word in the matter of building ships, operating and assigning ships, instead of scattering this authority, as at present, in the Army, the Navy, and the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Possibly there should also be a transportation dictator, who would see that railroads, inland waterways, storage warehouses and lightering facilities are run as one system to secure maximum efficiency. When we have this, then every ship's ton will do its full duty in beating the German U-boats."

In the report of the Shipping Board to Congress more complete control and regulation of merchant shipping was recommended and additional legislation asked to cover the transfer of American vessels to foreign registry. The present law, it was declared, is obscure and does not give the Board sufficient authority. Thus it would appear that the Board itself is in harmony with the "Patriotic Education Society" in one respect. It is to be assumed that Congress will give the Board greater authority in the matter of the transfer of American ships to foreign registry. That would be a consistent carrying out of previous Congressional policy which has been to make it as easy as possible-compulsory, in fact, in some cases—for American ships to be transferred to foreign registry, but quite impossible for foreign ships to come under American registry. That attitude-implied and expressed -is the root and branch of our martime failure. American ships have been driven to foreign registry by our burdensome laws which have made it impossible to operate them successfully under the American flag, and the prohibition against bringing foreign-built ships under our flag, has been as definite as the laws against the importation of opium.

When we have 9,000,000 or even lesstons of American shipping we may be forced to part with some of our ships owing to the shortage of trained man-power, or be content to see them lie idle. The alternative is government ownership and operation or legislation that will make it possible for Americans to operate them as individuals. Unquestionably the Shipping Board should have the authority to charter these ships, if necessary to keep them in service, to countries that can operate them, pending our ability to do so, but beyond that the Board should be given. no authority permanently to part with a single ship. Imagine the hue and cry that would be raised were it proposed to give to the Navy Department a general authority to dispose of war-ships to other countries, especially to Germany or to any other country that threatened war! These ships that we are building will be the war-ships of foreign trade when this war is over and no board or other government department should have the authority to dispose of them or to permit them to pass from under the American flag under any circumstances or pretext whatever, save by vote of Congress. Is it possible that the Shipping Board itself does not fully appreciate the fundamental necessity of keeping all of these ships under American registry and so amending the conditions surrounding their operation that it will be possible not only to find Americans who will purchase or charter them but also the men who will man them?

A compromise seems to have been reached between the Navy Department and the Shipping Board regarding the personnel of the new merchant marine that is coming into being. Unlike most compromises, the plan hit upon gives promise of accomplishment, to some degree; but, like all compromises, it fails of the object ultimately to be sought. Under the terms of announcement made on December 12 the Navy Department and the Shipping Board will exercise a joint jurisdiction as follows: "The bulk of vessels under the Ameri

can flag, whether engaged in the transAtlantic or elsewhere, so long as they retain their character as merchantment, will continue to be manned by merchant sailors. Troopships and vessels carrying whole cargoes of munitions or supplies for the Army and Navy, however, for military reasons, will be manned by naval crews."

The New York Herald refers to this as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" measure and asserts very properly that the discipline on merchant ships entering the war zone must be naval from the beginning to the end of the voyage. And it adds: "Should merchant officers find it impossible in a season of war to accommodate themselves to these new conditions, the sooner they find a new job the better it will be for the country and for the merchant service. The real solution is to transfer all this work to the Navy Department and let the Shipping Board occupy itself with duties for which it was created."

This is, therefore, another emergency measure calculated to serve the most pressing needs of the moment but in no way inaugurating a constructive policy that will build up permanently a body of merchant sailors who will make it possible for us to man and operate these American ships after the war is over. Accompanying the above announcement by the Shipping Board was a further statement of its work in providing for 58,000 officers and men to man the fleet that is to come into being, which is all very well so far as it goes, but which falls very far short of solving the main problem.

Although this decision smacks somewhat of the Judgment of Solomon, we can but feel that its wisdom is merely that of expediency. All fundamental questions as to the creation of an American merchant marine personnel is left for the future to decide. A unique and very great opportunity has, in consequence, been passed for the time. Questions of wages of

men, the conditions of life on merchant ships, and far greater than these, the opportunity to enlist the interest of young men of a higher quality than we have ever had before are passed up.

Never before in the history of this country has the opportunity been so ripe for the rooting of the merchant marine spirit fully in the breasts of all the people as at the present. Pessimists to the contrary notwithstanding, we will have the ships. God knows we have already had the lesson of their national necessity. Will we forget that lesson or will we let it pass, only to see the foreign trade that is virtually within our grasp pass to some other country after the war, perhaps to be carried in some of these ships that we are building.

Great Britain's shipbuilding is—as we have shown-going on apace, not only to make up for present submarine losses, but to be prepared for the foreign trade war. In addition

to which it should be remembered that all of the tonnage reported sunk by submaines is not lost. Note that Sir Eric Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty, reports that "there had been only three ships torpedoed in home waters the salvage of which had been abandoned, and only one ship which it had been decided not to repair for the present." He further states that 80 per cent of the salved ships were to-day under repair.

Great Britain is certain to be in a stronger merchant marine position after the war than when she entered it. The German plans for the rehabilitation of her merchant marine are most comprehensive, and these are the countries with which we will have to compete. Let us not consider in this country any question of transferring American ships to foreign registry, nor of failing to operate them to the fullest. The Shipping Board's plans for an immediate supply of men will do very well for the emergency, but let us remember that every young

American man who can be induced and trained to adopt a sea-faring life as an occupation becomes an advance agent of national prosperity. He knows his country and its products. He is the best advance salesman that we can have, and an American merchant marine manned by foreigners is only half efficient.

It is for that reason the National Marine League has so readily co-operated with every plan to train American merchant sailors. It is for that reason the League is placing before every State of the Union a proposed bill for the establishment of state nautical training schools, with the reasons for their installation. We urge upon every reader of this magazine that he familiarize himself with the terms of this bill as printed on page 57 and use his utmost personal endeavor, each in his own State, to cause it to be enacted into law.

Pursuant to its announced purpose to stimulate the establishment of a series of state nautical training schools to supply men for the merchant marine The National Marine League has addressed the governors of the several states and submitted a pro forma bill, or enabling act, which it suggests receive consideration by the legislatures of the states.

In explanation of its purpose the League takes the ground in its letter that the great war has brought in its train economic convulsions which have forced the United States to develop, in the course of three years, a maritime service which under normal conditions might not have been accomplished in twenty-five years.

There will be built-chiefly under Government auspices over ten million tons of American ships within a short space of time; but unless the nation can also provide men herewith to operate these ships under the American flag, it is evident that they must either be transferred to a foreign flag or rot at their moorings.

The United States Government can build ships but it cannot build men. The training of young men for the maritime development of the republic is impossible of execution under federal auspices alone. As well might we conclude to abolish every "little red school house on the hill," every city, country or state university or school, and trust to the education of American youth from a federal center in Washing

ton.

From every fair sized city in every state of the Union there is graduated every year a steady stream of young men for law, medicine, engineering, or some form of business enterprise connected with activities on the land. There are at present only 50 graduates annually from the State of New York and 50 from the State of Massachusetts, making a total of only 100 young men who are graduated for maritime careers out of a population of over one hundred millions.

As the proper development of America's latent maritime possibilities and her foreign trade will more than double the sum of her total wealth at the present time, it follows that the earnest cooperation of every state and county in the Union is necessary in order to supply a steady stream of young men every year who may be available for overseas maritime and commercial activities.

Moreover, the war has shown, as never before, that the prosperity of every inland state depends upon the free and unrestricted sale of the products of that state all the year around. Prior to the war, it was proved that the output of American industries was at least three times greater than the absorptive capacity of our own home markets. Hence, if American mills are to run steadily and if American labor is to be steadily employed throughout the year, it is absolutely necessary that American products be sold with equal regularity throughout the year. This is impossible unless the export trade of America is vastly increased. Moreover, unless Americans control the oceanic transportation of their exports, foreigners will control the prices Americans will eventually receive for those exports.

Therefore, The National Marine League earnestly begs that the honorable gentlemen to whom this paper may come will use their utmost efforts to coordinate the activities of their own state with that of the national government in providing and educating young men as officers and seamen for the newly born American Merchant Marine. These young men will be more than mere seamen, they will be foreign trade getters for their native states. It always works out so.

Possibly certain states of the Union cannot establish nautical schools of their own. For these we recommend that states establishing such schools provide for the reception of pupils from other state who shall pay such fees as may be found reasonable. The way being thus opened, states unable to establish their own schools may provide scholarships for residents of their state in schools of other states. Provision might be made for the joint establishment by two or more states of a nautical school under their joint auspices. Inland states might establish their nautical schools either on the Atlantic, Pacific, Lake or Gulf coasts.

In closing its memorandum, the League emphasizes the most important, but little appreciated economic truth, that it is the freight producing activities of the farms, mines, forests, mills and manufacturers of the interior that make the building and operation of any kind of ships, or the employment of any kind of sailors possible, and that the denizens of the great Mississippi Basin are, in sober earnest, the real "Sea Lords of the American Merchant Marine." The suggested form of the proposed bill follows: