THE SHIPPING BOARD.
The trials of the American merchant marine are once more engaging attention in consequence of the Comptroller- General's report that 321 former Government vessels have been sold for less than 4 per cent. of their cost, and President Hoover's instruction to the Attorney-General to investigate the sales. The Shipping Board officials claim that the best available bids were accepted in accordance with the Con- gressional desire to end government ownership as quickly as possible and expedite the development of a privately owned American merchant marine. In the meantime some buyers of former Government ships are themselves expressing dissatisfaction because the ocean mail contracts, which they claim were an essential corollary of their purchases, have not been granted them. The shipowners' interpretation of the Merchant Marine Act, which provided for the award of such contracts among other inducements to help American
shipping, differs from that of the Postmaster-General. Faced with a deficit in his own department, the Postmaster is not convinced that the law compels him to grant contracts except at his discretion. Meanwhile the advocates of bigger American merchant marine assert that, while od paper the present fleet, totalling 11,000,000 tons, is second only to Great Britain's, about 50 per cent. of the ships arc) useless and another 25 per cent. nearly obsolete. A review of the whole policy of Congress and the Administration hi respect of merchant shipping is being sought in a resolution which has been introduced into the Senate.
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