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ANTM AU IIUUIUUULUIUT KT ANN \ } 2 | i ial il NH | AAA ATT HUNUUUUTUNUUUUUTU.UUTTUA UL NEW YORK Goethals—Plans Hopeless; Denman—Discussion Inappropriate; Eustis and Clark —Ships Ignored; Goethals—Facts Misstated; Let's Build Ships Not Quarrels RESIDENT WILSON, Premier Lloyd George, Premier Ribot, and practically all other states- men charged with the task of directing the P energies of the world’s three greatest democracies to the one job of defeating Germany, have taken occasion during the past few months to reveal the real necessity for ships. Their utterances must have aroused the unthinking to a keen appreciation of the need for ships to turn aside Germany’s latest and possibly last blow at the economic vitals of her enemies. To the thinking, the warnings were but a confirmation of what they had known. A legislator in the French chamber of deputies a few days ago produced statistics showing that Germany’s depreda- tions since the beginning of 1915 had caused the loss of 5,400,000 tons of merchant ships. At the accentuated rate of destruction in the past few months, no doubt remains of how badly ships are needed. Preventive measures, such as increased efficiency of patrols, will help, but basically it is a question of increasing the number of carriers which can transport supplies to the civilian population of our European allies and munitions and supplies to our own and allied armies. Nearly Half a Billion to Spend The United States shipping board is the govern- mental agency upon which much of the burden of furnishing these ships must rest. About $400,000,000 has been made immediately available for its use under Presidential authority and through the instrumentality of the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corp. The sum allowed is ample to provide for an immense fleet. The German and Austrian tonnage taken over by the government make an effective addition to the available supply of carriers. The requisition of tonnage now building for foreign account puts at the country’s command another effective fleet of excellent ships. : Without disparaging the effective work which the shipping board and its newly organized corporation has accomplished, a chronological arrangement of cer- tain perturbing and disquieting facts may be present- 227 ed. Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals told the leading steel men of the country, at a meeting of the Amer- ican Iron and Steel institute on May 25, that the original program of the shipping board to turn out wooden ships on an enormous scale was hopeless. He told of the situation when called to the govern- ment’s service. “I was confronted with the problem of turning out one thousand 3000-ton wooden ships in 18 months,” he said. “It was said the steel could not be procured. I found contracts to build these ships had been promised in all directions. When I looked into the plans and specifications, I found none. When we consider that the birds now are nesting in the trees that are to go into these ships, and that these ships must have a speed of about 10% knots an hour, if they are to escape the submarines, the proposal was simply hopeless. I began a campaign for money. As I regard all boards as long, narrow and wooden, and being a believer in authority, I wanted both money and authority.” A Question of Propriety Chairman Denman of the shipping board entered the lists the next day with the observation that “If all the ships ‘that can be built within the next 18 months are built, there still will be need for a thousand wooden ships to make good the deficit in our merchant ton- nage, even though the German rate of destruction is reduced to half that established in the month of April. I do not know whether a thousand wooden ships can be built in 18 months. There was a hope expressed that we could, and I have carefully avoided denying the possibility of realization of this hope. My reason for not denying it is because I do not care to have our German enemies in Berlin receive that amount of comfort. We believe that the committees of congress, and not a public dinner with the head of the steel trust, are the places for the discussion of matters of policy with regard to shipbuilding.” Then a few days later, F. A. Eustis, assistant general manager of the corporation, and F. Hunt- ington Clark, his assistant, issued statements virtually