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Apply Good Sense to Shipping Hoover Declares that the Present System of Government Ownership and Control with Joint and Divided Responsibility Is Doomed to Failure — Experience in Government Clearly Calls for a Single Administrative Executive with Private Ownership and Operation as Soon as Possible as the Goal- Board Should Be Deliberative and Judicial ‘HEN the present epoch has \ \ ‘passed into history the bun- gling and the wisdom of to- day will stand out in clear relief and no doubt many will wonder why the correct solution of our shipping prob- lem was not hit upon sooner. The answer will be that it was impossible to move in sufficient unanimity the members of the legislative branches. There has been too much of politics and too little of clear hard thinking. The thoughtful and considered opinions of the ablest leaders in the govern- ment have been ignored in favor of sectional and personal aggrandizement. The time has now come when con- gress should take a broader and more statesman-like view of the problem. It can do so by giving serious attention to the suggestions recently made by the secretary of commerce and by i. G. Dalton of Cleveland. Private Ownership Is Essential Setting forth some clean-cut sug- gestions as to the reorganization of the entire merchant marine, Secretary Hoover declared on Nov. 16 that the country never can expect a real or satisfactory merchant marine until it is owned and maintained by private enterprise. His views on the ship- ping question were given at the open- ing of the National Merchant Marine conference in the United States cham- ber of commerce building. Joint and divided responsibilities loaded upon members of the shipping board in the last few years, Mr. Hoover pointed out, preclude the pos- sibility of building up the merchant marine through the board. The secre- tary advocated that the whole fleet and other property should ‘be trans- ferred to the Emergency Fleet Corp., the president of which should be ap- pointed by the President of the United States, subject to confirmation by the senate. He opposed _ incorporating such functions into the activities of the department of commerce. He thus backed the views of President Coolidge as to a one-man executive for gov- ernment shipping. He also suggested an advisory board to act with the Fleet corporation president as well as re- gional committees, similar to those of the Federal reserve system. Mr. Hoover’s views, as presented a short time ago also to Representative Wallace H. White Jr., acting chairman of the house merchant marine and _ fisheries committee, are summarized as follows: “1. There are about 20 overseas trade routes which are the connecting links between our inland trade routes and foreign countries upon which our foreign trade is dependent. “2. For the protection of our com- merce from discrimination and from combinations which would impose onerous freight rates, we must main- tain upon each of these routes the operation of very substantial shipping under the American flag. “3. Commerce cannot operate upon. uncertainty of transportation; it re- quires regular ferrylike sailings over essential routes. “4, The type of ship which is best adapted to such regular service and at the same time is the most profit- largely requires the cargo-liner type. from 10,000 to 18,000 gross tons with a speed of 12 to 18 knots, preferably diesel-propelled, and having up to say, 20 per cent of passenger space. Re- placements and extensions should be driven to this ideal. “5. The national defense requires an American merchant marine and it also ‘largely requires the cargo-liner type. If any type other than that of strictly commercial character is required, the extra cost of building and operating should be part of the military budget. “6. We will never have a real or satisfactory merchant marine until it is owned and maintained by private en- terprise. The government cannot op- erate cheaply. It cannot secure rev- enue as large as private enterprise. It cannot avoid the interminable dif- 461 ficulties and wastes of bureaucracy and, above all, the direct and indirect political pressures. Furthermore, gov- ernment operation and competition with private enterprise, with the United States treasury as a reserve fund, totally dulls private initiative. We must get out of government op- eration as quickly as we can establish private operation. It is useless to re- new proposals to subsidize shipping. “7, Some of the lines on these trade routes are today successfully operated by American flag private enterprise. Some of the government lines which - are losing money today would pay if operated by private enterprise, and they could be disposed of under proper guarantee of continuance if private firms could be sure of future government policies. With the growth of the volume of trade most of the remainder of the lines could I be- lieve, be ultimately disposed of to successful private operation. Some of them could be partially assisted by interested communities. All of them would be assisted by more liberal postal rates commensurate with those paid by foreign nations. “8. It seems to us vital in the pro- tection of our entire commerce that we must maintain American flag trans- portation on all these important trade routes. The government is now deep- ly in the shipping business, and I be- lieve must continue to operate such routes as private operation cannot undertake until they have either been built up to the point where private operation can undertake them, or, al- ternatively, until they have proved im- possible of successful operation. “9. We need some criteria for de- termining when successful operation is impossible on a particular route. We do not believe this could be done legislatively. Administratively it could be determined by experience, but we must have a firm determination of the government to go on as long as the route shows improvement. No