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ew A OR IUN UE Ro Boo yV oe 6b we Labor's Appeal f or Aid to Shipping. During the sessions of the Merchant Marine Commission im Cleveland Mr. A. Van Druven as the representative of the Brotherhood of Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders of America delivered a powerful appeal on behalf of labor for aid to American shipping. His testimony was to the effect that thousands upon thousands of members of his organiza- tion were idle because of stagnation in the ship building in- dustry. He said: "We stand before you as representatives of American labor and we ask for the passage of a bill through congress that will cause the building in American ship yards of the vessels required for our oversea trade. Congress has for nearly half a century encouraged and maintained foreign shipping in our foreign trade through its refusal to protect American ships in that trade. Hundreds of millions of dollars of American money have been exported to pay aliens to build the millions upon millions of tons of foreign ships that have been and are now employed in doing the bulk of our oversea carrying. We ask you: to reverse the policy and protect American ship owners, American ship builders and those whom they employ, to the same extent that, by your inaction and neglect, you have so long protected foreign ship owners, foreign ship builders and the aliens whom they employ. "We represent the Brotherhood of Boiler Makers and Iron Ship builders, an organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. We have a membership of 40,000 American workingmen, with over 500 local lodges in as many different parts of the United States. About one-half of the members of our brotherhood are seeking employment at their trade, the depression in which is due to the fact that the ships employed in doing our foreign carrying are built in foreign countries by foreign labor. And we are but one of a number of labor organizations whose members are largely if not wholly dependent upon American ship building for work at their trades. The wages that we receive, when we have work, are the wages that are paid to skilled mechanics employed in similar industries in the United States, and they are no more than are necessary to enable us to live as be- comes American citizens. We will submit to no reduction in the wages we receive in order to have ships built in the United States, and least of all will we accept the wages that are paid in foreign shipyards, which do not exceed one-half of the wages that we are paid. ~The remedy for the decline in American shipping must be one that shall leave unimpaired the rates of wages paid in American ship yards--that may as well be understood in the beginning. We know that there are many American work- ingmen who are steadily employed at their trades and re- ceiving the American scale of wages because the product of their labor is protected by acts of congress against the free com- petition of the product of foreign labor. We are convinced that, were it not for the protection which congress has seen fit to give to the product of American workingmen, fully one- half of those who are now steadily employed would be, like we are, seeking work at their trade. We ask no more than you accord to other workingmen in the matter of protection, and we assure you that we shall accept no less. The product of American ship yards must be protected against the com- petition ofthe product of foreign ship yards, precisely as the product of American labor in other industries is protected against foreign competition, "Tt will not do to say that foreign ships may not obtain American registers, and assert that this is prohibitive pro- tection in favor of American-built ships, so long as foreign- built ships are permitted to enter our ports and engage in our deep-sea carrying upon terms of absolute free trade com- petition with American-built ships. There is no protection for American ship builders when the product of their labor is compelled to meet the product of foreign ship builders upon terms of free trade competition. No man will invest in an American-built ship, costing from 25 to 40 per cent. more to build than a foreign ship costs, and then attempt to run her in free trade competition with foreign ships. More than a full generation of trial nas shown that such competition is a continuous failure. When it is shown, as it can be, and as it doubtless has been to the entire satisfaction of every member of this commission, that the cost of operating an American ship is much greater than the cost of operating a competing foreign ship, it must be still more plain to you that there is nothing to attract capital into American-built ships for the foreign trade. But, when to these two items of construction and operation expense, is added the further handicap of government aid extended by foreign governments to the foreign ships that compete with our own, is it neces- sary for you to inquire why it is that we have but one ton of American shipping in the foreign trade today under the American flag, where we had three tons 43 years ago? 'Tt has been 'the policy of the United States during prac- tically the entire lifetime of every mechanic actively employed in the United States today to protect him against the com- petition of foreign labor in foreign countries--every mechanic alone save those employed in ship building for the foreign trade. You cannot expect American workingmen who are em- ployed in the building of ships to accept a rate of wages only one-half that which they now receive--only: one-half that re- ceived by their fellow workingmen in other trades, even if such wages are the total received by the workingmen em- ployed in foreign shipyards. | "Congress, by its protective policy, has created and main- tains a condition in the United States which must be uniform to be just. So long as it says to me, and to the men of my craft, that we cannot enjoy the same measure of protection that our brothers who are employed in other industries enjoy, just so long congress will continue to investigate the de- cline of American shipping and seek remedies for its revival. The only remedy is- equality of condition for the product of our hands with that produced by the hands of workingmen in - the protected industries. "For nearly a century congress has excluded foreign-built vessels from our coastwise trade, and, in order for those seeking to engage in that trade to get the vessels they need, they must apply to American ship yards. When they get there they must pay the American scale of wages, rates on a par with those paid to other workingmen in other protected trades. In that branch of the industry you long ago created and have ever since maintained a protective condition. Now, gentle- men, do you think that you can induce American workingmen to go into American ship yards and build snips for the foreign trade at one-half the wages that are paid to the men who are building ships for the protected coastwise trade? Certainly not. It must be clear to you that you have created and long maintained a condition of partial protection to which you have been striving for over forty years to adjust a condition of free trade, and of course it don't work. You can't expect it to work. You have got to make the protective policy uni- form in our ship yards--the product of our hands must be protected just the same when it is to engage in the foreign trade as it is when it is to engage in the coastwise trade-- either that, or else free trade all along the line. But I am sure that none of you expect to find a remedy for our ship- ping decline through free trade channels. "Look around you in this great lake country and see the