5. PASSENGER CARRYING CAPACITY OF THE HIGH-SPEED FIRST-CLASS IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC SERVICE

Thus with two United States flag liners in 1939 the accommodations for firstclass and tourist passengers will be less than at present. It is of course considered that first-class ships will be the fastest ships of their period. Between the time periods above mentioned the average speed of the ships considered has increased about 20 percent. Third-class passenger accommodations have been omitted from this comparison.

6. ENGINEERING FEATURES

Since the Queen Mary and Normandie were designed great advances in ship and engine building have taken place and this country has adopted in its naval construction most of these features. It is proposed to use in the two express ships such features as welding in place of much of the usual riveting, high-strength steels, aluminum alloys, etc. The designer of the machinery of the Bremen has made a proposal of substitute machinery for that ship that would be 7 percent lighter, produce 50 percent more power and use about 15 percent less fuel per unit of power. Such is indicative of the advance in about 7 years.

The displacement or weight of a ship is a measure of the capital stock. If this can be reduced, operating costs will be reduced and greater efficiency will prevail. It is not considered wise to propose great passenger-carrying capacity for these proposed ships. It is not the maximum number of passengers carried on two or

possibly three voyages per year that counts as it is the average number carried during the year. If that average number is a larger parcentage of the capacity, a less percentage of the capital invested in passenger accommodation is idle. The income from the average number of passengers will not pay the charges on a great unused capacity that is provided for the two or three full-capacity voyages per year.

Comfortable and roomy accommodations for the alloted number of passengers will be an asset and an attraction for trade.

By applying the advanced engineering features to the proposed express steamers America is in a position to build a pair of ships that will be much more efficient than the monster ships of England and France and that will also be available for other trades if needed as their size and draft would not be so excessive as to prevent entrance to any but the very largest harbors and docks.

Express ships of the size proposed could be built by at least three shipyards in the United States with a minimum, if any, of added plant facilities. Plant additions for monster ships would be a part of the cost of such ships but not a part of their value.

While England and France have increased the size of their ships German builders have seemed to reduce the size and weight to attain greater efficiency. Italy has not resorted to great size, in fact the Rex, which holds the speed record now, is less than 900 feet long. The smaller ship with reasonable passenger capacity but with the high speed represents the greater engineering achievement. It is intended that the proposed ships will be much smaller than the Normandie and Queen Mary but will have at least their speed and such passenger accommodations as will be an attraction to passengers so that the average number in normal times will be a greater percentage of the maximum than has been the case with many existing ships, equal to the average number those ships will carry.

7. VALUE TO THE NAVY

The express ships should be so designed that with a minimum of work-no dry docking they could be transformed into aircraft carriers or troop transports. The cabin ships would make excellent troop transports. It is believed that the Washington treaty would not permit of a purely naval aircraft carrier of the size of these express ships. Without doubt the foreign ships of this type are definitely available for naval auxiliaries. The United States now has nothing comparable to them and thus our auxiliary possibilities are greatly inferior. Admiral George H. Rock, United States Navy (retired), has recently testified before the Post Office Department Investigating Committee to the desirability of having American "superliners" available for naval auxiliary service.

It seems obvious that for maximum efficiency such ships of our auxiliary fleet should be of a size that will easily transit the Panama Canal and hence we cannot follow the size of the Queen Mary and Normandie, which cannot pass through. Furthermore such fast ships should be of a size as can be docked on both coasts and can enter many harbors.

8. LEGISLATION PROPOSED

It is apparent that such express ships, while of great value to the country, cannot be built and successfully operated by private capital alone. As their use is national they should be subsidized by the Government for both building and operating. Corresponding ships under foreign flags are doubtlessly heavily supported in building and operating costs by their respective governments and it seems right that we should do no less.

It is proposed that the impending ship subsidy bill include provision for the building and operating of two such ships.

This may be accomplished (a) by outright building by the Government and charter to an operating company, (b) by the definite contribution by the Government of a substantial part of the first cost with provision for compulsory operation and maintenance by the operating company, (c) by a definite payment by the Government annually for a period of years to the operating company to allow the operating company to build and operate the ships for a like period of time, or by other means to be decided. Plan (c) woul appear to be the best of the three proposed. The above proposals are very broad and many details should be included in any scheme adopted.

To consider this more fully it is proposed that you select a committee of about five, representing building, financing, operating, Department of Commerce, and the Navy to assist you if the way be clear, in preparing definite arrangements for

such a fleet in the forthcoming shipping bill, bearing in mind that a groundwork for this was laid in 1929 and 1930.

It is probable that working from the above groundwork it would take from 6 to 9 months to prepare a complete design from which definite prices for constructing such express ships could be obtained. If it is deemed advisable to definitely propose the inclusion of such a fleet in the bill it would be well to immediately provide means for this design work for it is of much importance in shaping the whole project.

After a definite design is made it would probably take from 30 to 36 months to build two such ships so at the earliest they cannot be in service before 1939. The third ship of the cabin fleet, being of a less special type, could be provided for in the more regular manner by which other ships may be constructed as will be set forth in the subsidy bill or, being a part of the plan for the special shipping service set forth in article 4 it, too, could be considered by the proposed advisory committee.

HON. SCHUYLER OTIS BLAND,

EDGAR P. TRASK.

BUSCH-SULZER BROS. DIESEL ENGINE Co.
St. Louis, U. S. A., March 17, 1934.

Chairman Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries,

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN: Secretary Roper, who inspected our new type of lower weight and cost marine Diesel on the occasion of his visit to St. Louis yesterday, asked me to write you along the lines of a discussion I had with him concerning the merchant marine problem.

It is a pleasure to endorse and cooperate in putting into effect so logical a solution as Secretary Roper presented in his radio address on March 6, a simple, straightforward, fair-dealing program for Federal aid which should not work an undue hardship on any shipowner, if fairly carried out, and which would reduce Federal marine subsidies to that minimum necessary to accompolish the purpose of maintaining essential trade routes.

The fundamentals of the American merchant marine problem are:

At the conclusion of the war all other maritime nations were short of ships; while America had a great fleet of war-built, single-purpose, slow-speed cargo carriers.

European countries that had been carrying American commerce before the war were greatly concerned as to the disposition of this huge fleet of American merchant ships.

Their fears were realized when the American Government decided to reestablish the American merchant marine with these ships on every important trade route of the world.

Probably the menace of this formidable competition spurred foreign nations to develop ships offering higher speed, more modern cargo-handling facilities, special refrigeration for perishable goods, and, especially, more efficient machinery, which would reduce the cost of higher-speed ocean transportation and permit offering the lowest rates for improved service.

The result has been that while other nations have been building large fleets of modern, fast cargo lines, America has not built a single such ship and continues to operate the fleet of war-purpose, obsolete, slow-speed ships that are now nearing 20 years of age.

The surplus of the least desirable of this war-built tonnage has been scrapped; and it is noteworthy that Japan has been a heavy purchaser of American scrap which, over recent years, she has been turning into new, fast cargo liners of the most modern, economical, and well-equipped types.

There seems to be only one answer. These old ships must be scrapped and we must remelt the scrap ourselves to produce the modern, fast, economical merchant ships so absolutely necessary for a successful American merchant marine.

Now is the time to do this. It will provide maximum employment for the expenditure of any given amount of Federal funds. The capital so spent will produce capital goods that, in turn, will earn more capital. This is sound economics, as it provides for eventually restoring the national wealth expended under the Federal recovery program.

To show the extent to which shipbuilding has declined in the United States since the war, the following table of the comparative output of the United States and Great Britain and Ireland is extracted from Lloyd's Register (Jan. 31, 1934):

The outstanding feature of these new foreign merchant ships is the wide-spread adoption of the Diesel engine for propulsion. No other type of power-producing equipment can approach the Diesel engine in efficiency. The remarkable growth of Diesel ships is shown by Lloyd's reports of the gross tons launched by all countries in the world of motor vessels and other types since 1920:

Quoting further from Lloyd's report of January 31, 1934:

"The returns show that Japan now leads all countries in the volume of motorvessel construction, followed by Sweden, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, Holland, and the United States, in the order named.

Of all the ships of 6,000 tons and larger launched throughout the world in 1933, all but one were Diesel propelled. The total tonnage of ocean-going motorships now afloat is over 10,000,000. This, then, represents our present-day competition. Unless we build as efficient ships as foreign competitiors operate against us, we shall have to pay unnecessarily large subsidies; and unless we build modern tonnage, equal in speed, accommodations, refrigerating equipment, and cargohandling facilities as that afforded by foreign competitive ships, we shall witness a further decline in the American merchant marine.

Secretary Roper's program will appeal strongly to the ablest American ship operators. It gives a subsidy only where a subsidy is actually due. It prevents the encouragement of unnecessary competition built up through Federal aid to compete with adequate subsidized lines and thereby render them less profitable with greater Government cost.

I am strongly of the opinion that his program will restore that confidence in the future of the American merchant marine to encourage eventually the investment of private capital for the building of replacement tonnage.

However, the present owners of obsolete tonnage, purchased from the Government at whatever low prices, are in the unfortunate position of having fleets of ships that are so costly to operate that no replacement reserves have been, or could be, accumulated over the years. In selling these obsolete uneconomical

ships to American ship operators, however well intentioned, the Government is, to a degree, responsible for the losses which have piled up from their operation. It is, accordingly, fair play for the Government to take this responsibility into consideration in affording relief to shipping companies in financial distress, where this distress has been caused wholly, or in part, by the uneconomical operation of these obsolete war-purpose ships. The Japanese Government is offering a special subsidy to encourage the replacement of obsolete Japanese cargo ships of specified amount per ton, with the requirement, I believe, that two old ships are to be scrapped for each new ship built. This has contributed substantially in relieving unemployment in Japan and at the same time building up the Japanese merchant marine on a sound basis. The loaning of Federal funds at extremely low rates of interest for long periods, to encourage shipbuilding, should certainly be continued.

It seems that no wiser investment of public works funds can be made than to produce capital goods that will earn more capital and prevent the ultimate exhaustion of national wealth with the attendant menace to Government credit, in the effort to take care of the unemployment problem that faces us over several years to come.

Your address, delivered before the annual convention of the Mississippi Valley Association at St. Louis last November, which has been widely published, has received most favorable comment throughout the middle west. The entire country is looking forward to an orderly reorganization of the merchant marine that will correct past abuses without working hardships on honest and capable American ship operators.

With every good wish to you in this effort you are making,
Sincerely yours,

EDWARD B. POLLISTER, President.

BALTIMORE, MD., April 1, 1935.

Hon. S. O. BLAND,

Chairman House Committee on Mercantile Marine and Fisheries. HONORABLE SIR: As a shipbuilder and operator of considerable years experience I am vitally interested in the measure before your committee and have attended several of the public hearings on the act.

There is one point in connection with the high cost of American construction that I did not hear brought out, and I am taking the liberty of bringing it to your attention. I refer to the practice of American shipowners of requiring ships built for their particular trade to be specially designed and constructed for that trade with equipment and arrangement that contribute in no way to the safety or economical operation of the vessel. It is a case of having a suit of clothes made by the tailor instead of buying a good hand-me-down that will answer all purposes for business, and paying quite a difference. The fact that a number of the lines

are operating Shipping Board boats in all kinds of trade and doing well without much opportunity of picking special boats substantiates the argument.

Shipowners have no right to ask a paternal Government to pay for silk linings and black pearl buttons.

The Department of Commerce is now working on standardization of ships and it should be possible to offer a shipowner in the market for a new ship a standard design and specification that that will get for him the capacity, speed, economy, cargo handling, and highest class insurance qualifications that he needs, and at a lower cost than his own design and specifications would permit.

The construction loan would be based on the cost of the standard ship rather than on the cost to the owner's plans and specifications, and he would probably hesitate before adding 10, 15, or 20 percent to a tool that would earn no more money than the one of his choice.

The effect of a policy of this sort would result in standardization of methods in the shipbuilding yards, elimination of costs of drawings, molds, and patterns, and reduction of overhead.

Equipment and auxiliaries could be standardized with consequent mass production and the aggregate of savings in cost for each ship would gradually reduce the differential between building in American yards and in foreign.

This proposition of a standard ship for everybody applies particularly to the freight ship with possibly limited passenger accommodation. When it comes to high-speed ships with large passenger accommodation this does not apply. The requirements for different trades are more varied and standardization is more complex, but the proposed Maritime Authority should be able to assist in keeping the cost low.