The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 5, 1925, Page 9

The United States and World Shipping By EARL R. “R. BROWDER HB strikes of seafarers now going on in Great Britain, the Scandinavi- fn countries, Australasia, and the Far Hast, render it important that exact information be available about the position of the United States in world shipping, as a basis for the program of the militant seamen of America to participate in the world struggle of the toilers of the sea. According to Lioyd’s Register, 1924- 26, the total tonnage of the world is 64,023,567; of this, 15,956,967 tons are of United States entry, or approxim- ately 25 per cent. Great Britain is credited with 21,878,500 tons, or 34 percent of the world tonnage. The remaining 41 per cent is divided al- most: entirely among 30 other coun- "tries; the largest of which is Japan. Japan lias 3,843,707 tons, or 6 per cent thé Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, have together 7 per cent; France has 3,498,233 tons, and Germany 2,953,671; the first something under 6 per cent and the latter over 4 percent. Italy is slightly under Germany, with 2,832,212 tons. The Dutch shipping amounts to 4 per cent, and the Spanish to 2 per cent. Thus eleven nations control 92 per cent of the world’s tonnage, of which 59 per cent is in the hands of Johnny Bull and Uncle Sam, leay- ing 33 per cent to the nine need > cipal countries.* aos problem of world shipping is, in the light of these figures, largely a problem of Great Britain and the United States. Workers in America must understand this, and turn more attention to the organiza- tion of the seafarers, in which is in- volved the future of the whole labor movement. This is even more clear when the connection is understood be- tween world shipping and imperial- ism, All of this tonnage is not in use. There has been a world crisis in ship- ping for the past five years, with vast amounts of tonnage lying idle. The ‘most acute result to the workers in this crisis, heretofore, has been in the ship-building industry. In America, the labor unions in the shipyards-have been almost entirely destroyed. In Great Britain, the unions have suffer- ed severe defeats and unemployment. HE amount of idle tonnage in giv- en in a U. S. government report* as 6,753,000 tons for the world, of which the United States has 4,253,000 tons, and Great Britain 1,130,000 tons, More important that the relative am- ount of idle tonnage, however, is the tendency of development, From Jan, 1 to July 1, 1925, the amount of idle tonnage in the United States increas- ed by less than one per cent, while that of Great Britain increased nearly 60 per cent, It is this sharp accentuation of the shipping crisis for Great Britain that has brought about the struggle now going on between ship owners and sea- farerg thruout the world. British ship- ping has lost tremendously thru the decline in British hegemony over the world market, Even in 1921, the fig- ures of British imports showed a de- cline to 74.3 per cent of those of 1913, while exports had dropped to 49,8 of 1913; this decline has become even ereater at the present time,** T the same time that British ship- ping is In decay, the opposite is true of United States shipping. Less than nine per cent of the idle tonnage in the U, 8, reflects any crisis In trans- portation itself, as distinct from ship building, The present tremendous U, 8, merchant marine was produced during the war, by government funds, and is now being absorbed into the “normal” process of American tmperi- alism, beginning with the sale of vast quantities of tonnage by the govern- ment to private interests, at a mere fraction of their value, the process Is *Merchant Marine Statistics, U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of “Navigation, * Commerce Reports, Aug. 24, 1925, page 429. f ** Figures quoted by A. R. Marsh, editor Economic World, in Annalist, Aug. 28, 1925, page 245. being carried thru along two main lines: (1) the tremendous increase of U. 8. foreign trade, and (2) the capture of world shipping thru com- petition in rates, The first of these lines of develop- ment is shown, for example, in the facts contained in an article by E. D. Durand (in Commerce Reports, Aug. 10, 1925, department of commerce), as follows: “The value of exports in 1924-25 was a trifle less than two and one-fourth times, and that of imports a trifle over two and one-fourth times’ greater than in the average pre-war year... Altho prices now average decidedly higher than before the war, there has been a quantitative increase of somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent in the case of exports, and of somewhere between 50 and 70 per cent in the case of im- ports, export prices on whole increas- ing more than import prices.” HE second line of development is illustrated in the “almost utter collapse” of the shipping industry, de- scribed by A. R. Marsh, in an article in the Annalist, Aug. 28, previously cited, in" 1920, when “ocean freight rates had fallen precipitately to a mere fraction of what they had been a few months before,” and in the cur- rent rate decreases in 1925, as de- scribed by BE. S. Gregg, in his article, “Shipping Depression Continues,” in Commerce Reports, Aug. 24, 1925. In the bitter struggle between Brit- ish and American shipping interests tor mastery of the world’s shipping, the British owners are now trying to offset to some degree ‘the advantage which the U. S. interests gained by the indirect but effective subsidy em- bodied in the sale of government ships to private interests for little or noth- ing; the latest move of British ship- ping interests being another drastic cut. in wages, to make the seamen bear more of the burden of imperialist competition. The British wage-slash- ing campaign is, of course, and. by the “necessity” of capitalism, immediately reflected in wage-slashes in the small- er shipping nations of the world. UT this latest offensive against the interests of the working class has aroused the most wide-spread and des- perate resistance. To this struggle of the workers in Europe and Asia, the workers of America must react’ by mobilizing the utmost possible assist- ance, and by joining the struggle. Un- less the British and other seamen, now struggling against wage cuts in the principal seaports of the world, are successful in their fight, the American seamen and the entire American work- ing class eventually, will also feel the lash of their masters, driving them to pay still greater tribute for the im- perialist rivalry for control of world commerce, It is thus of the most vital interest to the American seamen and to the whole American labor movement, to join in and to assist the struggle of the seamen of Europe and Asia. INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY CELEBRATION IN N. Y., SEPTEMBER 11 NEW YORK, Sept. 4—In view of the great importance of Internation- al Youth Day to the Y. W. L. for the work of propaganda, agitation, and mobilization of the masses of working youth of America, the presi- dium of the D. E. C., in the name of thé D. E. C., requests as follows: 1. That all party organs give the 1. Y. D. demonstration of New York full and effective publicity, 2. That all party organs situated in New York carry a short time be- fore the demonstration an editorial on the significance of |. Y. D., includ- ing an announcement of the meet- ing. 3. That all party organs printed in New York (including the New York edition of the DAILY WORK- ER) carry FOR THE LAST TWO DAYS before the demonstration a streamer announcing the meeting. Australia Profiteers Greet U. S. Fleet bes / vias 3 \ te ea) The City Library | By JESSE A. KEEBLE. Worker Correspondent. At the city library one day I picked up a magazine entitled “Musical America.” On page 24 was an article concerning orchestra leaders and to my surprise they gave as an example and model of the way an. orchestra should be conducted, the orchestra of Leningrad, U.S. S. R. Here is a para- graph from the article. “Leningrad has a Soviet orchestra which is never seen with a conductor at its head. Indeed, I even doubt that a conductor is present at the rehears- als and yet work of the most: compli- cated modernistic tendencies are un- hesitatingly and precisely played. If the musicians are really what their name applies, they do not need some one to tell them at what bar they come in it seems to me.” If you want to thoroughly un- derstand Communism—study it. Send for a catalogue of all Com- munist literature.