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Editorial British Distort American Policy I NTERESTING revelations of the attitude of Brit- ish shipping interests toward the American mer- chant marine developed at the annual meeting of the. Liverpool Steam Ship Owners’ association which was held Feb. 13. In a report presented on behalf of the directors it is stated: “Any attempt to keep all international trade with the United States for vessels under the American flag, by penalizing in its ports vessels under other flags, would react disastrously on the American shipowners. Every voyage on such trade must either start or end in a country other than the United States, and in all those ports the American shipowners would be exposed to the risk of retaliatory measures directed to offset the disabilities imposed on foreigners in United States ports. A Merchant Marine Is ‘“Unimportant”’ “It would appear to this association that at the mo- ment some nations are disposed to attach undue im- portance to the possession of a mercantile marine, and that in great measure this feeling has been created by the introduction of the term ‘sea power’ into the re- lations between merchant shipping and overseas com- merce. It is impossible to use the term ‘sea power’ without denoting some kind of force or compulsion, but international commerce must be carried on without force or compulsion. Within its territories, a state may conceivably compel its citizens to buy and sell, but world commerce is the sum of innumerable transac- tions effected all over the world between willing buyers and willing sellers. “The carrying facilities afforded by merchant ships are sold and bought in exactly the same way as coal or wheat; and it is an error to suppose that the possession by a nation of the ability to provide such carrying facilities creates any power differing from that created — by the possession by any other nation of the ability to provide the cargo to be carried. In both instances the ability to provide, no doubt, confers power on the possessor, but it is in no sense such a power as that termed ‘sea power.’ At the most it confers the power to bargain. “Tnternational commerce is not, and can not be, the exclusive concern of any individual trader or of any individual nation, and it is on this broad ground that the association has protested against the proposals that have been under consideration in the United States during the past year. It is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, within the competency of the United States to grant any subsidy or bounty it pleases to its own merchant shipping. The justification for such grants is almost always based on the plea that the national ships are operated at greater cost than vessels: under. other flags. On the other hand, any attempt to go 147 O further, as was suggested in the proposals that have been under discussion in the United States, by penaliz- ing in its ports the ships of other nations, raises en- tirely different considerations. All such penalties are designed to drive the ships of other flags out of the freight market, and if they attain their object a monop- oly is secured for the national ships in commerce which essentially is not national, but international. When this point is reached, the national ships will be- come the masters and cease to be the servants of all the- overseas commerce with the country by which the monopoly has been conferred.” From the foregoing, British shipping interests clearly persist in the belief that the American merchant marine policy is designed to prevent foreign ships from having any share whatever in American commerce, whereas all that American policy aims to accomplish is to- give American ships a fair proportion of international trade. A great deal of the bitterness exhibited toward American shipping in Great Britain is due to these false conceptions of American policy which have been religiously fostered by British shipping interests for two years or more. Furthermore, if Americans at- tach “undue importance” to the possession of a mer- chant marine, we are only following feebly in the wake of our British friends, who have certainly left noth- ing undone which might exalt. the importance of the — British mercantile fleet. Fight for Government Ownership PPONENTS of the subsidy in the senate love inconsistency. As a matter of fact, many of them would not be in the senate if incon- sistency were not common in American political life, so that their affection is understandable. For instance, Senator Brookhart of Iowa, in op- posing subsidy, called attention to the loss of 10,- 000 cars of Washington apples through high freight rates and the difficulty in securing cars and ships. Consequently he favored government ownership as. the means of preventing such conditions. But when advocates of a subsidy point to the low freight rates at which last year’s grain crop was carried across the Atlantic and point to this as indicative that the United States must continue to own and operate a big fleet of commerce carriers, the Iowan senator hops over the fence. He refuises to see- any benefits in this condition to the farmers al- though seeing the detriment from the opposite con- dition as it affected Washington apple growers. As a matter fact, many of the opposing senators are socialistically in favor of government ownership and refuse to appraise any subsidy argument for its. economic value. The goal of government owner- ship is to be gained despite any lack of logic in the methods employed to win that goal.