Cargo Jam?

To all its grey warships at sea, to its land forces overseas the U. S. Government last week broadcast: "Germany has entered Poland. Fighting and bombing is in progress. . . . Govern yourselves accordingly."

Ships of the U. S. Merchant Marine (see p. 63) picked up the message and put on more steam for port. Ships of France, Italy, Germany and many of England had for the most part already abandoned the high seas--a fact which portended a cargo jam at U. S. ports.

Only 36% of the U. S.'s $3,000,000,000 annual exports are carried in U. S. bottoms. The rest moves in foreign carriers. (In 1914 the proportion was 9% of $2,000,000,000; World War I almost quadrupled U. S. exports and by 1919 U. S. tonnage increased 60%.) Hence the U. S. merchant fleet of 27,470 vessels (gross tonnage: 14,632,000 tons compared to 12,907,300 tons in 1919) may not be able to keep goods from piling up on U. S. wharves. Not yet seriously affected, U. S. ports were last week in the following condition :

Philadelphia: Thousands of tons of scrap iron lay stranded on the docks, its eventual destination uncertain and unknown.

New Orleans: Port commissioners prepared to remove cargoes awaiting two overdue German freighters to local warehouses. Several other ships had canceled their sailings.

Houston: Docks were clear of cargo, but shipping companies were accepting little future business.

Seattle: Wharves were clear but no bottoms were available at a time when lumber and logs, wheat and flour, canned salmon, apples, should soon be moving. (Apple shippers were grim; Great Britain. Germany, France take all their exports.) It looked as if Seattle's $1,000,000-a-day export trade would be reduced to a trickle.

San Francisco (where shipping plummeted to an all-time low in World War I): Exporters had considerable inventories, but enough ships to handle only the next six-months' traffic.

Los Angeles: Shippers hoped that their Chamber of Commerce would take over U. S. coastwise vessels to forestall a tie-up of cotton, citrus fruits, petroleum, exports.

New York and Boston: On the docks lay few cargoes of foodstuffs, machinery, tools, waiting to be picked up. Whether ships would come for future contracts no exporter would venture to predict. For the first time since 1918 war risk insurance on U. S. vessels had doubled, tripled.

To safeguard premiums and for payment of possible U. S. claims for war-sunk ships, Lloyd's of London, world's leading insurance syndicate, had transferred $40,000,000 to New York. Meantime, U. S. exporters await anxiously how and whether the Neutrality Act will be applied. Strict enforcement of the Act would prevent exports in vessels of any nationality of arms, ammunition or implements of war for belligerent states-- would put a crimp in present foreign commitments outstanding. Just under the wire last week a British steamer slipped out of San Pedro (Port of Los Angeles) with twenty-five Lockheed bombers aboard.

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