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End of Government Ownership Will Make Pap Fed Operators Shift for Themselves Mild Recent Activity in Selling Is Quite Encouraging An Established Steamship Service of 18 Ships Sold to Opera- tors—Ford's Offer for 200 Ships for Scrapping Accepted O ONE in authority in either the shipping N board or the Emergency Fleet Corp. will go so far as to commit himself as to exact- ly when the government should withdraw as an operator of the merchant fleet. No enactment has been placed on the statute books by congress fix- ing a date for the final relinquishment of the government vessels to private operation. There- fore, it is not improbable that the government bureaus may continue their wasteful management of the important shipping industry for years, un- less something happens to jar things loose in the shipping board, the Emergency Fleet Corp., or in congress. Stop Temporizing—Get Action Reports have been heard within the last few days that the more aggressive sales policy adopted recently by President Palmer, of the Fleet corpor- ation, actually means that the government ship- ping bureaucracy hopes to have all its vessels sold and to be out of the operating business by the end of this year. President Palmer does not say, however, that this end will be accomplished in five years. Already more than five years have passed since congress declared in the merchant marine act its policy for a merchant marine of the best equipped and most appropriate types of vessels, “ultimately to be owned and operated privately by citizens of the United States.” The govern- ment still operates several hundred of the vessels built during war time and owns most of them. Occasionally ships have been sold. But in the five years that have elapsed since congress gave voice to a policy of removing the fleet from government operation “as soon as practicable, consistent with good business methods and the objects and pur- poses to be attained by this act,” few outstanding sales have been made. A short time ago, the board gave its approval to the sale of 18 of the 20 vessels of the American Export line to the Export Steamship Corp. at $7.50 a ton. The sale provides for guaranteed operation for five years, of at least 60 round trips in a year in the established service. Nego- tiations for this sale were conducted by Admiral Palmer, who was recently delegated by President Coolidge to conduct sales negotiations in the future “on his own.” The Export Steamship Corp. is the managing operator of the American Export Line, of the board, operating between Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. Henry Ford is starting the task of scrapping the 150 lake- type vessels and the 50 ocean-going ships he re- cently purchased from the Fleet corporation under its scrapping program, from which he will get about 290,000 tons of steel scrap. A few of the larger vessels will be dieselized for the Ford fleet. Drive Polictics From Shipping Control Outside of these ship sales, little has been done within the last five years. The Dollar inter- ests bought the seven 502-foot ‘President’ type combination cargo and passenger vessels several years ago, and more recently bought five of the 535-foot “President” type combination cargo and passenger ships, operated by the Pacific Mail Steamship Line for the government from San Francisco to the Orient. These have been the only outstanding sales. Unfortunately a number of members of congress favor permanent government operation 325