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. May, 1916 gards such cargo. The minimum rate on freight from Hongkong, Amoy, Foochow, Keelung, and Manila to San Francisco, Portland, Ore.; Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver by the new tariff is $12 gold a ton of 2,000 pounds, or 40 cubic feet at ship’s option, and the rate runs to $30 gold per ton on more valuable cargo plus an additional ad valorem charge for the most valuable goods. The rates are effective for the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., the. Océan “Steamship: Cos Ltd, the Java-Pacific Line, the Glen Line, the Royal Mail Steamship Line, the China Mutual Steam Navigation Co., the China Mail Steamship Co., the Canadian Pacific Railway Co.’s Line, and the Bank Line, Ltd. Freight Tie-Up in East Freight congestion at New York is a railroad problem and can be handled. only by “railroad ~* men, according to steamship operators. Of- ficials of leading steamship lines out of New York say that while they would be ready to meet with other committees to discuss the freight ac- cumulation. situation, in their opinion such conferences would not only fail to produce results, but would be a waste of time. Protest has been made by shippers that while the railroads and the con- signees were combining to reduce congestion, the steamship men showed EUTRAL vessels which have N been destroyed directly or in- directly as a result of the European war during the 20 months of its course number approximately 212, representing a total tonnage of 306,209 gross tons. Thirty-five of these ships, according to the Journal of Commerce, of 72,885 gross tons, have been lost since the first of the year, indicating that the general aver- age of about 10 a month has only been slightly exceeded during the three months of 1916, although the size of the ships destroyed has been larger. The. nations whose tonnage has been affected are the United States, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Spain and Greece. The subjoined table shows the num- ber, tonnage and nationality of steam and sailing vessels destroyed in opera- tions during the 20 months of war ending March 31, 1916, and shows also the number and tonnage of vessels owned in each of the countries listed. The tonnage given is the tonnage THE MARINE REVIEW no disposition to co-operate with them. “The steamship lines are not con- gested,” declares the’ manager of the freight department of a large steam- ship company. “They are ready to take merchandise as rapidly as it is furnished. There is a lack of tonnage, but that is not due to the fault of the ship companies and cannot be remedied by them. The railroads and shippers knew there was not sufficient tonnage to accommodate the flood of traffic through New York and should have taken measures accordingly. “The steamship lines are not direct- ly concerned with the causes of con- gestion at the piers and_ terminals. We know that deliveries are not made regularly, and for that reason loading is delayed. The routine of loading a vessel is fixed and if lighters are late they cannot avoid being held back. “The heavy freight must go into a vessel at the bottom. If we notify the railroads to deliver steel rails on Monday, and they do not arrive until Thursday, the loading of the entire vessel would be tied up if we waited for them. At the present high freight rates we cannot afford to hold the vessels for late freight. It would be conservative to say the average load- ing of ships is delayed 50 per cent. We have had vessels here for 23 or 25 days which should have sailed in. 10; “The terminals and piers are crowd- ed with merchandise for which no owned by each nation in gross for the steam vessels and net for the sailing vessels included therein: *1915-16. +(20 mos.) Flag: - No. Tons. No. Tons. fUnited States... 2,580 3,522,913 6 10,377 Danteh: scutes 835 54,966 32 36,537 Dutehe teens ais 809 1,522,547 32 74,127 Norwegian ..... 2,174 2,529,188 89 123,303 Swedish: 45255 ca 1,462 1,122,883 39 36,781 Spanish ice. 642 809204 ees Greek eee es 943 1,801,716 *Neutral steam and sailing vessels. owned according to Lloyds’ Register Book. yNeutral gross tons of sail and steam ves- sels destroyed in war. £Excluding vessels’ trading on the Lakes of North America. Great Few American Ships Lost The United States, with the largest total tonnage, has lost comparatively few ships as a result of the war. None has been destroyed so far this year, while Communipaw, of 3,170 gross tons, which was listed as lost on Jan. 1, has been raised, reducing the total tonnage destroyed to 10,377 gross tons. The Scandinavian countries have suffered the severest losses, due to the mining of the waters in which ping Sufiers 183 shipping space has been provided, I understand. To place an embargo on incoming freight will accomplish little result if some disposition is not made of the surplus merchandise on hand. I am not a railroad man, but it would seem that the best way to relieve the terminal situation would be to move such freight back inland and to make way for goods with shipping space already provided. : “Under present conditions steamers for Australia and other points find it impossible to get cargoes because of the congestion caused by shipments to Europe. Yet, our vessels lie along the piers and wait for deliveries. “The steamship men are in no way responsible for the strikes, storms and other incidents which have caused trouble on the railroads. If we felt any good would result we would gladly discuss matters, but effective action is the only thing I can see that is needed from us.” The four-masted steel bark Epwarp SEWALL, one of the largest sailing ves- sels ever built in this country, has been purchased by the Texas Oil Co. from Arthur Sewall & Co., Baltimore. The new owner will convert her into an oil-burning steamer. She is to. be used as a tank ship. She ‘is 332 feet long, 45.3 feet wide and 25.5 feet in depth, has a tonnage of 3,206 gross, carries 34 sails and was built in 1899° at’ Bath, Me; by “Arthur Sewall & Co. leavil their ships are operated. A _ consid- erable number of their vessels have also been destroyed by submarines. Norway heads the list with an aggre- gate loss of 89 vessels, but most of these were comparatively small and the total tonnage destroyed, 123,303 gross tons, is not proportionately as large as the loss suffered by some other nations. With the further mining of the North sea and adjacent waters, fol- lowing reports of pending naval activ- ities and with the increasing opera- tions of German submarines, naviga- tion has become more dangerous and the risk has tended to restrict ship- ping, as indicated by the withdrawal from service of the Holland-America liner RotrerpaAM. It is interesting to note that while Holland has lost only 11 vessels since Jan. 1, as compared with 21 during the preceding 17 months, the tonnage destroyed in three months has been greater than the amount destroyed in the longer period.