Ships-- for What?

Congressionally speaking, few U. S. industries are as strong as the puny U. S. shipbuilding industry, which employed only 55,000 men (in construction) in 1929, only 65,000 last July. No U. S. industry, big or little, has been so welcome in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Washington as shipbuilding. None has sucked so well at the public tit. But last week shipbuilding was threatened with political orphanage. For the sea-loving President and his Neutrality Senators appeared to be compromising with land-loving William Borah and his Neutrality Senators on Cash-&-Carry. This would force Europe's belligerents to come and get whatever Congress will let them buy--in their own ships. And this, in turn, would obsolete the up-&-coming U. S. Maritime Commission and its program of rebuilding the merchant marine to handle the foreign trade of the U. S.

Nor was there much chance that the Allies would wish to buy ships useless to the U. S. At the outbreak of World War I, 34,825,000 tons of shipping were on the seas, at its end new construction had offset all but 1,784,000 tons lost in the War, scrapped. But at the outbreak of World

War II, 68,000,000 tons are already in the water--of which the British Empire owns 21,000,000 tons and can draw on at least 30,000,000 tons more.

But one big merchant-navy man who was not bothered by all this was Maritime Commission Chairman-Admiral Emory Scott Land. On the chance that any time within the next two years Congress might want many more merchantmen than the U. S. now has, particularly merchantmen convertible into aircraft carriers and other handy things to have around in an emergency, Chairman-Admiral Land meant to have ships on hand. His answer to last week's shipbuilding jitters: to shovel out orders for seven ships more to the overworked yards which are currently building merchantmen.

Immediate result of all these new ship orders was a rush to put inefficient plants back to work--plants not used since World War I. Thus, American Ship and Commerce, an unappetizing Harriman affair, owes the U. S. Government $1,097,413.22 from World War I, and owes Philadelphia $1,229,608 in back taxes. It offered to settle for $100,000 apiece, got Attorney General Frank Murphy to agree provided it can become a going concern again, started reorganizing to open its moldy Cramp's yard in Philadelphia. On the west coast, where last spring the U. S. Navy had tried unsuccessfully to buy Bethlehem Steel's Hunters Point Drydock in San Francisco harbor, and where Admiral Land is determined to build two new shipyards, the rush to restore obsolete capacity was wildest. Western Pipe and Steel, a small steel fabricator which did only a $5,336,034 gross business last year, booked a $10,635,000 order from Chairman-Admiral Land, began to spend $400,000 to build four new ways, re-dredge the channel at its long unused yard in South San Francisco. At Los Angeles, Consolidated Steel, another small steel fabricator ordinarily happy with $4,000,000 of business, grabbed $7,560,000 of shipbuilding business, began renovating the old Craig yard. On the northwest coast, Todd Shipyard Corp. (for years mainly an east coast repair yard and boiler maker), with $10,635,000 in new shipbuilding business, started rehabilitating the Todd Tacoma plant for hull construction, Todd Seattle Dry Docks, Inc. for completion and outfitting of vessels. On the Gulf Coast, overworked Tampa Shipbuilding and Engineering Co., embarrassed by a $7,800,000 Maritime Commission award for four C-2 cargo ships, induced the Commission to rescind a previous award of five smaller -i ships to permit it to build the C-25. [n yards all over the U. S. ships are being launched prematurely and moved uneconomically to fitting-out basins, in order to clear the way for new keels.

Meanwhile economists,who had been looking to shipbuilding to absorb thousands upon thousands of unemployed workers, began ast week to single out the shipbuilding industry as one of the tightest bottlenecks in he way of further advances in production. They noted that, whereas the bottleneck in steel (TIME, Oct. 2) might slow down an unhealthy scramble for unneeded steel, a bottleneck in shipbuilding would certainly slow down one of the key capital goods industries they have been relying on to take steel off the market--if Congress decides that the U. S. does need ships.

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