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Marine Review FOUNDED 1878 SHIP OPERATION : Volume 64 Secretary Wallace Attacks The Merchant Marine! T IS unthinkable that President Roosevelt will support the pro-fcreign merchant ma- rine policy outlined by Henry A. Wallace, secretary of agriculture, in a recent letter to Schuyler Otis Bland, Democratic representative from Virginia, and chairman of the house mer- chant marine and fisheries committee. Had the secretary appeared in the house of parliament in England, during a recent debate on a proposed subsidy for British shipping, and there stated the views expressed in his letter, he would, no doubt, have been widely cheered and very probably would have received the thanks of parliament for his sweet reasonable- ness. It would be hard to find a parallel in our history for so glaring an instance, of a high placed member of the government, in offering to give up the nation’s birthright for a mess of pottage. Mr. Wallace believes that in the interest of our export trade we should be willing to accept as an import, ‘“‘shipping services rendered by foreigners,’’ as well as commodities. By im- plication he places American shipping in the category of the less efficient industries and suggests that such industries should be sacri- ficed to save the more efficient and the more essential from social and economic standpoints and, then he has the grace to add, with con- sideration to national defense problems. He also makes a point to suggest, “‘it may be to our economic advantage as a nation to con- centrate on the exploitation of our rich internal resources, leaving partly to foreigners the car- rying trade in which our natural advantages over them are not as great as in other forms of production.” Mr. Runciman himself could not have stated more clearly, exactly the attitude the British government and shipping men would like to have us adopt toward our merchant ma- rine. Mr. Wallace believes also that, “if we SHIPBUILDING : September, 1934 CARGO HANDLING Number 9 further protect shipping, we shall export less of our farm commodities.’’ The question is, shall we or shall we not have a merchant marine. Without government aid our merchant marine will recede to its former insignificance when we carried less than 10 per cent of the trade to which we were a party. Even under present conditions, with govern- ment aid, we are now carrying only approx- imately one-third of our own commerce. Reams of evidence brought forth in a decade of congressional debate, before the passage of the merchant marine act of 1928, points to the need of an adequate merchant marine of our own, both in the interests of our commerce and national defense. Innumerable investigations by committees of the widest variety of personnel have produced voluminous evidence of our need of a merchant marine. It would seem to be unnecessary to again call attention to the plight we were in during the World war and the stupendous expenditure then required, in the midst of the emergency, to make up for long neglect of this necessary arm to our na- tional welfare and defense. Again and again situations have arisen which have emphasized the value of American mer- chant ships. Are we a great mercantile marine nation to give up the art of shipbuilding and become impotent in creating our own vessels of commerce, buying from others a _ service essential to the development of our resources? And if so, why bother about building a navy. since all authorities are agreed that strength on the seas depends on fighting ships, bases, and a merchant marine? Without the latter, the naval establishment might well be com- pared in effectiveness to that of a three-legged stool with one leg gone. Fortunately we have in the White House a man whose traditions are deeply rooted in the sea and whose conception of maritime ade- quacy will not be disturbed by the specious arguments of the secretary of agriculture. Furthermore, the congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, would never countenance a defeatist policy for our merchant marine. MARINE REVIEW—September, 1934 ct