Tax

In 1851, when Herman Melville finished writing Moby Dick, the golden age of U. S. whaling (1820-50) was on its way out. It probably hit its peak around 1846 when lusty Yankee whalers out of New Bedford and other New England ports came home with some $8,000,000 worth of crude whale oil. But by 1900 the U. S. industry had passed into history due to the exploitation of cheap petroleum products and a scarcity of whales. Since then it has revived, but last week it appeared that it might be doomed once more.

Seven years ago descendants of the owners of the old whaleship John Carver formed American Whaling Company, sent a small "floating factory" to the Australian fisheries. In 1937 testy, Danish-born Hans J. Isbrandtsen of New York City (Isbrandtsen-Moller Co., shipping), founded Western Operating Corp. with the help of Norwegian-born Texas Corp. Board Chairman "Cap" Torkild Rieber, Danish-born General Motors President William S. Knudsen and others. For nearly $1,000,000 he bought the 12, 395-ton former U. S. Navy auxiliary ship Ulysses, converted it into one of the most modern whale refineries afloat and dispatched it to the world's richest whaling grounds--the bitter, bustling, controversial Antarctic.

Impending war has made whaling highly competitive. The industrial value of a full-grown blue whale is about $1,500. Whale oil can be made into glycerin (for high explosives, etc.), oleomargarine, soap, lubricants. England has stored some 80,000 tons of it for war purposes. Partly because the Antarctic is its chief source, Germany, Norway and Argentina recently laid claim to vast segments of that frozen continent, and the U. S. is to send Admiral Byrd thither next October to establish U. S. claims.

To build up whaling fleets the U. S., Germany, Japan and others had to hire Norwegians. Aristocrats of whaling are the 260 Norwegian harpooners, who earn $6,000 to $15,000 apiece in the five-month season, live like Hollywood stars in Norway's whaling capital, Sandefjord. For the business depends on their art, finding whales and killing them. Two years ago Germany (world's biggest whale-oil user) signed Harpooner Lars Andersen, Norway's ace gunner, to a three-year contract at a reputed salary of around $125,000 a season.

In the Antarctic last year were all but a few of the world's 40 floating factories and scores of killer ships (small motor vessels from which the whales are harpooned, then towed to a floating factory). Their catch: 46,039 whales; 3,340,330 barrels of oil (over 90% of the world total). Of this the U. S. share was about 3%. Using Norwegian killer ships, the Ulysses caught over 1,400 whales, boiled them down, sold the oil to U. S. soap manufacturers at an average price of about 5-c- a pound. Ready to send his refinery back to the Antarctic next December, Whaler Isbrandtsen struck a snag.

In the Revenue Act of 1938 Congress put a prohibitive excise tax of 3-c- a pound on whale oil produced with the aid of foreign killer ships. This does not benefit U. S. harpooners because there are none but it suits U. S. farm and fish lobbies, because whale oil competes in a small way with domestic oils and fats in soap making. The whalers sponsored an amendment postponing the excise for five years. Last week Congress adjourned without acting on it. To Whaler Isbrandtsen that meant: 1) buying a fleet of killer ships (estimated cost of eight if U. S. built: $3,200,000); or 2) taking a chance that Congress would pass the amendment next session; or 3) disbanding his company and virtually ending the U. S. revival of whaling.

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