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JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. 94 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICANACADEMY ShippingServices for AmericanForeign Trade- The Present Situation By WINTHROP L. MARVIN Vice-President and General Manager, American Steamship Owners' Association W ITH a total of 16,324,024 gross vessels. In 1920 we conveyed 42.7 tons of shipping, privately- per cent. owned and government-owned, the It should be remarked, however, in American merchant marine now stands this connection, that while 10,289,317 a close second to the merchant shipping tons of our present shipping are reg- of the United Kingdom, which is only istered for foreign trade, this aggregate about 2,000,000 tons larger at the includes upwards of 600,000 tons of present time. This total of 16,324,024 emergency-built wooden steamers now tons includes our smaller coastwise withdrawn from traffic-and probably vessels and the 2,595,062 tons of ship- withdrawn permanently-as well as ping on the Great Lakes engaged in 1,262,000 tons of steel vessels of the port-to-port commerce. Considering Shipping Board laid up unemployed only the seagoing vessels of upwards of but likely to return to service. Our 500 gross tons, the American merchant active merchant carriers, however, marine has an aggregate tonnage of have not far from four times the capac- 12,264,282, of which privately-owned ity of the total merchant shipping of tonnage represents 4,810,520 gross Norway, or of France, or of Japan, tons, and United States Shipping which rank next after the United States Board tonnage, 7,453,762 gross tons. as commercial maritime powers in This American fleet of seagoing vessels 1921. is somewhat more than twice as large as The new war-built shipping, which the entire German merchant shipping makes up seven-tenths of our total before the outbreak of the Great War. seagoing shipping, is not an ideal Of all of our seagoing American fleet in type and character. If we had merchant ships of upwards of 500 gross been deliberately constructing the tonnage, 1,974,965 tons are enrolled merchant tonnage along our accus- for the coastwise trade and 10,289,317 tomed commercial lines, the ships, of tons are registered for foreign com- course, would have been much more merce. All of the recent notable in- carefully designed. They would have crease in American merchant shipping been as a whole of superior speed and has been in the amount of tonnage average size, and they would have had engaged in carrying overseas-the very many more passenger, mail and coastwise tonnage having remained al- fast freight liners among them. But most unaltered. The 10,289,317 tons the American people have nothing to of seagoing vessels registered for foreign apologize for on this account. They commerce at the end of 1920 show an were suddenly compelled to create a impressive contrast with the 1,076,152 vast "emergency fleet," to hurry sup- tons registered for foreign commerce plies to their anxious Allies in Europe on June 30, 1914. Our tonnage avail- and to send our own boys over to the able for international traffic has in- fields of France. Therefore, waiving creased tenfold in six years. In 1914 all calculations of commercial advan- we were conveying only 9.7 per cent of tage, we constructed the ships that our imports and exports in our own could be most quickly built and made SHIPPING SERVICES FOR AMERICANFOREIGN TRADE 95 ready for service-the conventional chant marine, operated from Puget "tramps" familiar to the ocean high- Sound to the Orient. Five American ways of the world. steamers of the famous old Pacific Mail There were belonging to the Shipping Company were running via Honolulu Board on June 30 last, 1,123 steel to Japan and China. The Oceanic cargo steamers, 15 refrigerator steam- Line had three ships in service from ers and 63 tank steamers, as contrasted San Francisco to New Zealand and with only 27 steel passenger steam- Australia. This was the total of our ers and 3 transports. Even including Pacific liner transportation-and the the considerable number of ocean pas- Minnesota and the five Pacific Mail senger steamers owned by private liners were withdrawn and sold in companies, there is still a very marked 1915 on the enactment of the La Fol- deficiency of passenger tonnage in the lette Seamen's Law. American merchant marine. A branch of the Pacific Mail Com- pany sent small steamships coasting DEVELOPMENTOF NEW CARGOSTEAM- down from San Francisco to Mexico, SHIP SERVICES Central America and the Isthmus of What has chiefly distinguished the Panama, whence the Panama Rail- new merchant shipping era of the road Company's fleet, owned by the United States is the widespread devel- War Department, went northward in opment of new cargo steamship serv- the Atlantic to New York. The New ices-any similar extension of passen- York and Cuba Mail Steamship Com- ger, mail and express freight services pany (Ward Line), the United Fruit was, of course, impossible. Under the Company, the Munson Steamship auspices of the Shipping Board, Line, the Clyde Line and the Red American cargo steamers are now "D" Line maintained services from operating from this country to every North Atlantic and Gulf ports to the important commercial country in the Caribbean region, where alone in all world. Before the war our equipment the world the American merchant of overseas shipping under our own flag was dominant. Our relatively few flag was exceedingly inadequate for its "tramp" steamers and large sail ves- purposes. The half-century-old Amer- sels made occasional voyages to South ican Transatlantic Line was operating America; but, with the exceptions from New York to Great Britain and noted, American merchant shipping France. A few American steamers was confined to the coasts of the United were on the Red Star route to Ant- States and to domestic commerce with werp. These few ships, not more than Alaska, Porto Rico and Hawaii. a half dozen all told, represented the Now, because of the war and its re- entire participation of the American quirements, this condition has quickly flag in regular transatlantic carrying. and completely changed. Private cap- Other American cargo craft made ital and enterprise have established casual transatlantic voyages. There new passenger and cargo services from were no other regular American west- our Atlantic coast to Hamburg and ern ocean services beyond the activi- into the Mediterranean, and private ties already described. capital and enterprise, in cooperation Across the Pacific at the outbreak of with the United States Shipping Board, the world war one American steamer, are operating 202 established general the Great Northern Minnesota, of cargo berths between the United States 20,000 tonnage, largest in our mer- and the ports of various foreign coun- 96 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY tries. No fewer than 100 of these 202 and maintenanceof the foreignand coast- general cargo berths are from ports of wise trade of the United States and an the North Atlantic, while 27 are from adequatepostal service. ports of the South Atlantic, 54 from the Two wholly new transatlantic pas- Gulf and 21 from ports of the Pacific. senger services have been created for American cargo steamships are for the the Shipping Board in the United first time in regular operation out of the States Mail Steamship Company, Gulf to European and other distant operating former German liners and ports. These are some of the entirely newer ships to the United Kingdom, new American-flag, regular, general Bremen, Danzig and the Mediterra- cargo services: nean, and the United American Lines, New York to South and East Africa Inc. (the Harriman Company), from New York to East Coast of Africa via the North Atlantic to the port of Red Sea Hamburg-the latter carrying only New York to India steerage passengers at the present time. New York to Dutch East Indies and The Shipping Board has also estab- Straits Settlements lished a freight and passenger service San Franciscoto Dutch East Indies and from New York to the east coast of Straits Settlements South America and from New York to New York to Australasia South and East Africa. Of these the New York to Far East Baltimoreto Far East east coast South America line to Jacksonvilleto Far East Brazil and the River Plate, employing New Orleansto Far East large former German passenger steam- New Orleansto India ers, is of very great importance. The Pacific Coast ports to Far East United States also possesses an admir- Pacific Coast ports to Australasia able passenger, mail and fast freight San Francisco to East Coast of South service from New York through the America Panama Canal to the west coast of South Atlantic ports to East Coast of South America in Southi privately-owned America and South Atlantic to West Indies ships of W. R. Grace Company. ports On the Pacific Ocean the Philadelphiato Far East Shipping Portland,Me., to Antwerp Board has allocated to the Pacific Boston to Antwerp Steamship Company and to the Pacific Boston to Constantinopleand Black Sea Mail Steamship Company newly-built ports passenger and cargo steamers, con- Boston to Copenhagenand Gothenburg verted from army transports, for the essential routes from Sound and These services are being operated Puget under of Section 7 of the San Francisco to the Orient and for an authority new service from San Francisco Merchant Marine Act of June 5, 1920, entirely to Manila and India. These new liners which directs the Shipping Board are of two classes-one of a length of to and determineas investigate promptly 535 feet and a speed of 17 knots, with as possibleafter the enactmentof this Act, a for of 200 and from time to time what capacity upwards passen- thereafter, and the somewhat less in steamshiplines should be establishedand gers, other, and of a of 14 with put in operationfrom ports of the United length speed knots, States, or any territory,district or posses- a capacity for about 80 passengers. sion thereof, to such world and domestic Though not record-breakers in speed marketsas in its judgmentare desirablefor or size, these ships are approved by the promotion, development, expansion practical operators as of an excellent, SHIPPING SERVICES FOR AMERICAN FOREIGN TRADE 97 all-round type for liner service in the merce, their actual freight rates and Pacific and to South America. their general methods were often These transport liners number 26 all exceedingly oppressive to American told. Several of them have been commerce. This truth, familiar to allocated to the Shipping Board service Americans engaged in world-round of the Munson Line from New York to trade, was sufficiently demonstrated Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, and by the insistence of some of the great- others to the New York and Cuba Mail est of our exporting companies-the Steamship Company for a service to the United States Steel Corporation and West Indies and Spain. Several of the Standard Oil Company, for exam- these new liners are now in operation ple-on possessing shipping of their in the service of the United States Mail own, which made them independent of Steamship Company between New restraint by the shipping of their York and Europe. All the ships of this competitors in Europe. liner class should be completed and A glance at the announcements of commissioned within a year. They overseas steamship companies in the will go far to supply the urgent need of pages of the commercial journals of a regular mail, passenger and fast New York-three whole pages of some freight service--but they will have to issues are devoted to this purpose- be supplemented later on by even shows how far flung are our present larger and faster ships, designed and lines of American general cargo built to private order. It will be steamers. several years at best before the regular Ships under the Stars and Stripes passenger service of the United States are announced as sailing for Havre and to foreign ports is fully comparable Rouen, for Bordeaux, Dunkirk and with that of Great Britain, France, or Rotterdam, for Lisbon, for Oporto, Italy-or the German service as it was Vigo and Bilbao. One new steamship before the war. service runs to Ireland-to Dublin, In cargo ships, however, the Ship- Cork, Belfast, Limerick and Sligo. ping Board construction has provided There are several lines under the for American manufacturers and mer- American flag to liberated Danzig in chants a far more frequent and ade- the Baltic and several to Gothenburg, quate equipment than our business Malmo, Stockholm and Helsingfors- men have ever had before. It was the harbors in which the American flag general practice of the European had scarcely been seen in recent years. steamship companies that monopolized American cargo steamers steering into our ocean carrying before 1914 to the Mediterranean touch at Naples, arrange that the cargo as well as the Genoa, Trieste, Venice, Piraeus and passenger service from American ports Constantinople, and going on into the should be distinctly inferior to the Black Sea discharge and load at Con- services provided by these foreign stanza, Galatz and Batun. Our flag, companies for their own manufacturers borne now not by sail craft but by and merchants. As a general rule, steamers, is visible on the west coast of these European steamship managers Africa at Dakar, Freetown, Secondi, placed their best and largest ships on Monrovia and Fernando Po. In their main export routes from their South America, Rio and the River own ports in Europe. Though their Plate see not only the stately passen- scheduled freight rates were not always ger liners of the Shipping Board but discriminatory against American com- also rugged Yankee cargo craft. In 8 98 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY the Orient, Shanghai, Hong Kong and present time the American proportion Manila, once familiar with our tall- of our overseas carrying is in value sparred clipper ships, now welcome probably not more than 40 per cent. scores of steel freighters, and regular It is believed that the United States American steamship services for the should rightfully have 50 per cent of first time are operating to Indian the carrying trade between this coun- Ocean ports-to Bombay, Colombo, try and the United Kingdom, and the Madras, Rangoon and Calcutta. same proportion of our carrying trade While American cargo steamers dur- with France, Italy, Germany, Scandi- ing the first six months of the calendar navia and other countries possessing year 1920 conveyed 22,724,217 tons ocean shipping of their own-and that of our imports and exports, foreign much more than 50 per cent should ships conveyed 15,273,967 tons. A fairly be secured for American ships in large proportion of the valuable im- the trade with countries like those of port cargoes of manufactured goods South America and the Asiatic main- was carried in the swift passenger land, for example, that have not steamers of Great Britain, France and developed their shipbuilding and navi- Italy-far more numerous than our gation to any great extent. own. In order to convey 60 per cent of our The principal ocean trades are con- entire normal imports and exports in trolled by conferences established American vessels, the United States under the auspices of the Shipping will require its entire present war-built Board, in which privately-owned Amer- and privately-owned merchant fleet ican vessels, Shipping Board vessels (excepting, of course, the emergency and the chief foreign companies whose wooden steamers), and a certain addi- ships are plying in the same trades are tional tonnage of passenger liner and all represented. These conferences, cargo liner craft not yet constructed. which the Shipping Board carefully FOREIGN OPPOSITION TO supervises, make an effort to stabilize AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE freight rates at levels which, while protective of the interests of the ship- The influence of the new Merchant ping companies, will guarantee equi- Marine Act of June 5, 1920-the Jones table rates to American exporters and law-has not yet been completely importers. In the present depressed tested. Some of its most important state of world commerce and in the provisions have not been enforced. face of existing scarcity of cargoes, it It is already manifest that in the devel- has been somewhat difficult to main- opment of our merchant marine we tain all of these conferences in effective must count on strenuous foreign oppo- working order, but their influence on sition. There is no doubt that Amer- the whole has been a beneficial one. ican vessels are being discriminated It should be understood that secret against in many foreign ports in a rebates and other questionable devices spirit wholly contrary to the natural of previous steamship conferences are comity of nations. One of the new under the ban of the law. services established by the Shipping It is the aim of the government to Board runs to the west coast of bring about a condition of shipping in Africa. which about 60 per cent in value of our When the pioneer cargo steamer of imports and exports shall be conveyed the first American line reached a cer- in ships of American registry. At the tain West African port-it happened SHIPPING SERVICES FOR AMERICAN FOREIGN TRADE 99 to be a British colonial port-the ating out of the port of Galveston, master of the steamer found to his Texas, found itself compelled to char- astonishment and wrath that a power- ter steamers under the British flag to ful British steamship company, dom- export raw cotton intended for the inating the commerce of that port, British spinners of Lancashire, who had placed its own steamers alongside had insisted that the cotton be brought the most convenient piers and had exclusively in British ships and in- engaged all the lighters of the port, sured exclusively in British insurance loaded them with stone and berthed companies. them under all the remaining hoisting Mr. W. A. Harriman, the President cranes, so that there was no place for of the American Ship and Commerce the Yankee ship to discharge her cargo. Corporation, declared in a recent pub- But the master of the vessel was a lic address that his American ships at man of initiative and determination. the port of Alexandria, Egypt, had First preparing his lifeboats so that he been unable to secure any cargoes of could land his cargo on the beach in an Egyptian cotton bound for the United emergency, he went ashore and with States, because the sellers of the cotton the agent of the ship-a British sub- had agreed with British steamship ject-called on the British colonial gov- companies that the cotton should be ernor and stated his case with such conveyed to America only in British emphasis that presently this official bottoms. Mr. Harriman added that informed the managers of the offending an offer of substantially lower freight British steamship company that they rates by the American ships failed to must move their vessels and make way make any impression on those who for the American to come in. had concluded this arrangement. This Another ship of this same American Egyptian cotton was intended for fleet went to the English port of Man- American mills, and every pound of it chester to load for the West African could have been transported in Amer- coast. There, also, the ship met a ican vessels at a considerable saving very cold reception. Even the lighter- of freight costs. But the patriotic com- men of the port refused to handle a bination of British cotton dealers and cargo, to go out under Yankee colors. British steamship companies would not Of course, in all American ports the allow this to be done. lighterage services and all other serv- Such instances as these suggest that ices for many years have been as read- it is only by patience and determina- ily available to British as to American tion that the new American merchant steamships-and, indeed, to ships of marine can win its place back on the all registries and all flags on equal high seas. British resolution to mo- terms. nopolize the greater part of our own It has just been announced that an country's carrying trade must be met American steamship organization oper- by equivalent resolution in America.