Table of seamen's wages on cargo vessels in the chief seafaring countries (May 1935) 1 Can obviously not be compared with the chief steward in other countries. 2 In France married men get in addition a family allowance, and all work in excess of 48 hours a week at sea is paid for as overtime. 3 Information available about Italy is very scanty. * The rates given for Japan are those paid in the subsidized lines. than those paid in the United States. While we believe that it will be difficult to determine the proper building subsidies to be paid and there may be some difficulty in ascertaining the difference between the cost of shore management in foreign and domestic vessels, we think that may be done. We have no objection to a building subsidy or to a subsidy to equalize the cost of shore operation, but in dealing with an operating subsidy, the difficulty in ascertaining the cost will be enormous, because of the great differential between the wages paid on the different vessels under other nations' flags arriving in the United States and competing with American ships. There is another aspect of this which should be kept in mind. Equalization of wage cost does not necessarily mean equalization of skill nor the equalization of the number of men carried so that it will be necessary to examine the different vessels as they come to the United States to ascertain any reasonably correct comparison. Vessels which carry real seamen that are capable of and doing the work seamen are generally supposed to be able to do would save a considerable amount of money in the upkeep of the vessel. This is done on board of the vessel by the crew itself and that is what they are on board for-to keep the vessel seaworthy, sanitary, and safe. An efficient crew incapable of doing this necessarily entails the employment in harbor of a large number of shore labor and this gives an opportunity for frauds which are extremely hard if not impossible to control and, therefore, entails an additional indefinite expense. In the most important maritime nations except in the United States all the shipping is under the control of shipping offices either run by the ship owners and the seamen in combination or by the government itself. No nation except the United States leaves that to the ship owners. England left it to the ship owners for twenty years from 1891 to 1911 with disastrous results which will be referred to. The blacklisting system developed by the ship owners and the Sea Service Bureau here in the United States has resulted in a reduction in the skill of seamen employed much more than 50 percent. The Sea Service Bureau itself reported to Congress as follows: "We have on our deferred list at the present time 1,125 seamen whose names appear there on account of being physically unfit for sea duty, and 1,885 seamen who have been placed there for various offenses such as putting emery in the bearings, assaulting officers with intent to kill, stealing ships' property, smuggling, desertion, and incompetency. To let these men go unpunished would be a detriment to our efforts to build up an efficient and loyal personnel on our merchant ships." Under the investigation and the powers granted to the Authority there will be a tendency to the equalization of the wage cost, because they are to collaborate with the ship owners. Equalization of wage cost will be accomplished through a downward trend-down to the minimum and this taken together with the blacklisting system, which no doubt will be continued, it will be impossible to get any self-respecting young American to sea or having got to sea to remain there. Any investigation into the sentiment of the men going to sea at present would disclose the fact that somewhere around 90 percent look upon employment at sea as the lowest condition into which men fall. Seamenship in the United States has been made so disreputable and the social status of the seamen has been so ruined by the condition under which he was shipped and the wages he has received that to obtain any work ashore no matter what it is is considered an advance upon his existing condition. When the Seamen's Act was passed and while it was in force the conditions of selection, shipping and wages were gradually rising so that in 1919 51 percent natives were on board of the ships of the United States. With the restoration of the Seamen's Act which we are asking for and which our substitutes to the labor sections of this bill provide an upward trend in conditions and wages would be restored. Under the seamen's sections of this bill nothing such as that can happen. The trend will be downward, downward, downward until it reaches a figure under which no white American will consent to work. In lieu of the seamen's sections of this bill as reported, we have submitted substitutes. Title I lays down the policy that the vessels are to be manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel. How this is to be accomplished is dealt with in title VIII-"American Seamen". Section 801 provides that "all of |