SHIPPING: Quandary

The sea of ships is boiling once more. What will the Government do with its merchant marine? The plan of Government operation, or rather of operation by subsidiaries of the Emergency Fleet Corporation—the stock of which companies would be entirely Government-owned—was two months ago supposed to be the order of the day. Meanwhile private shipping interests have protested vigorously and suggested alternatives, none of them, acceptable. The Shipping Board itself is not united as to the proper course of procedure. Conferences continue as to the possibility of consummating the sales of certain ships and shipping routes to private owners—on modified forms of the terms elicited when the entire fleet was offered for sale, last May (TIME, May 5, June 11). Meyer Lissner of the Shipping Board consulted in New York with representatives of the Munson Line, the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., the Dollar interests, Norton, Lilly & Co., the Argonaut Line. Mr. Lissner insisted that he was very hopeful. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Coolidge appointed an advisory committee consisting of Secretaries Hoover and Mellon, Senator Jones, Representative Green. Shipping men believed that this foreboded a change of policy on the part of the President —an indication that he did not favor operation of the ships by the Government through subsidiaries of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The act probably means no more than that the President has not yet decided.