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World Mercantile Shipping Crisis A\nalysis of British Point of View REPORT entitled The Mercan- A tile Shipping Crisis, on the existing position in the inter- national overseas carrying trade of the world, was presented by the Brit- ish national committee of the interna- tional chamber of commerce at the biennial congress of the chamber, May 29, at Vienna. This position, the com- mittee states, is viewed with the grav- est concern, The report covers the cir- cumstances in which that position has been created; and also summarizes the conclusions of the committee. These conclusions are given in full later on, and several of them will meet with general agreement among intelligent shipping men of all nations. On some, however, on account of the premises on which they are based, everyone fa- vorably inclined toward a fair place for American vessels in this trade will disagree emphatically. Using statistics from qualified and unprejudiced sources, including Lloyds and our own department of commerce, some startling conclusions may be drawn which are not justified after a fair analysis. For instance, in a table comparing all steam and motor ton- nage at June, 1914, 1923 and 1932, the United States is shown to have had a sea tonnage of 2,027,000, gross tons in 1914 and in 1923 a gross ton- nage in the same category of 13,426,- 000; dropping to 10,270,000 in 1932. Our figures show that in July, 1932, the American merchant fleet of steel ocean going vessels, steam and mo- tor, of 1000 gross tons and over, in- cluded 17383 vessels of 9,501,828 gross tons. The comparatively slight dis- agreement in these overall figures is not the point, however,. Of the 1733 vessels in the American merchant fleet, 861 of 4,303,986 were engaged in By A. H. Jansson the coastwise trade which by long es- tablished custom is confined to Amer- ican flag vessels exclusively. This leaves 872 American merchant ves- sels of 1000 gross tons and over of an aggregate total tonnage of 5,206,842 nominally engaged in what may be called foreign trade. How Fleet Is Divided Further analysis will show that of these 872 vessels. of 5,206,842 gross tons, a total of 362 of 2,089,864 gross tons are owned by the shipping board and of these 238 of 1,367,825 gross ‘tons are laid-up (and in 1933 the number of laid-up shipping board ves- sels increased to 254). Of the laid-up shipping board fleet no-less than 112 vessels of approximately 650,000 gross tons have already been sold for scrap- S a direct result of the aids granted by the merchant me- rine act of 1928, a number of fine, modern, efficient vessels, suitable for particular services, have been built in American shipyards and are now in opere- tion. Twelve of these, repre- senting 33 in all, counting sister- ships, are shown in the accom- panying illustrations. Every ves- sel was designed having in mind a specific route in foreign trade from an American port. ping, though not yet delivered. It must be remembered that all of the remaining vessels owned by the ship- ping board (and 52 of these, the more suitable ones, have been sold to pri- vate interests but not yet delivered at the time for which the figures are quoted) are at least 13 years of age, built under war time conditions, and are either obsolescent or rapidly reaching that stage. Many of those not already sold for scrapping and for private operation will never again be commercially used. This leaves a privately owned Amer- ican merchant marine as of June 30, 1932, of 510 vessels of 3,116,978 gross tons nominally in engaged in and suitable for the foreign trade. Let us look a little farther into the history of these privately owned ships. In 1917 in the category of steel ocean going vessels of 1000 gross tons and over, the United States had 658 ves- sels of a total gross tonnage of 2,- 642,348 privately owned. This was the total fleet for both foreign and coast- wise and since in that year we car- ried only 18.6 per cent of our foreign waterborne commerce, the vast ma- jority of them were engaged in coast- wise shipping. For years except for the impetus of the war there had beeir comparatively little shipbuilding for private account and as soon as war was declared the capacity of the ship- yards was quickly absorbed by the shipping board. It can, therefore, be stated that a great proportion of the then existing American merchant fleet was obsolescent and inadequate for ocean service. In 1932 the privately owned mer- chant marine of the United States in steel ocean going vessels had risen to S. S. Mariposa—18,017 gross tons—Speed, 20% knots—Complete d, Dec. 14, 1931—Sisterships, two 8 MARINE REVIEw—July, 1933 See MARINE ReEvirw, Feb., 1932