What Price Liberty?

By the end of 1943 the U.S. will have a merchant fleet 25% larger than that of Great Britain, traditional mistress of the seas.

This single figure, dropped last week by War Shipping Administrator Land before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was startling enough to raise up the rosy hope in many a U.S. layman that, through her immense production for war, the U.S. may easily re-establish a peacetime merchant marine which, as in the days of the clipper ships, will be second to none.

Slow But Not Sure. Yet no one has better reason to know that this hope is illusory than tough, hard-bitten Jerry Land. Shortly after Land gave his testimony, Winston Churchill in London was indicating why. One reason that shipping losses have been so big, said Mr. Churchill, is the slow speed of transatlantic convoys. In part, this is because both Britain and the U.S. have pressed into service many an old tramp freighter. But, as Navy men know well, the indictment also falls against new ships coming out of U.S. yards--notably the famous Liberty.

These are designed for a top speed of only ten knots. When fully loaded and in bad weather at sea, they of course do notably less. Equally serious reports: their engines break down often. Their plates have been known to crack. As a result they spend many a day in British and American shipyards for necessary repair work.

What to Do? Bad in war, this indictment of the Liberty also spells out an unhappy picture for the peace. Yet no easy solution is in sight. The Maritime Commission would like to build more 18-knot C-type freighters. But there are two compelling reasons for sticking to the Liberty program: 1) the Liberty is far easier to build, and as Henry Kaiser and many another shipbuilder has shown, can be mass-produced; 2) the Liberty takes an old-fashioned reciprocating engine, easier and quicker to produce than the delicate high-speed turbines that must go into destroyers and some escort vessels. Geared turbines are at the moment more precious to the U.S. Navy than diamonds.

But a partial compromise is in the making. The Maritime Commission now has in the works a new and bigger Liberty with a better reciprocating engine--which, however, cannot go into production until 1944. Possibly the present program of 200 C-type per year can be stepped up. But chances are that at war's end the U.S. will have to tie up and scrap many hundreds of merchantmen and start afresh, just as she did after World War I with the old Hog-Islanders. By that time the chances also are that the U.S. will want a far smaller (though infinitely better) merchant marine than her present one.

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