R E A L    E S TAT E







Vol. CII.





NIÎW YORK, AUGUST 10, 1918





No. 6





Mobilizing Man Power to Load Merchant Ships

Business  Changes  Necessary  to Make  New  Gommerce  Carriers
Most Useful to This and  Other Nations

By EDWARD N. HURLEY,
Cliairiiiaii United Statcs Shipping Board.





WITH something like 25,000,000 tons of merchant
shipping to be employed inside of two years, the
United States Shipping Board feels that it is none
too early to jook around for cargoes, both in this country
and abroad. With the task of building the ships in charge
of the Emergenc}' Fleet Corporation, under the leadership
of Charles M. Schwab, this function of the United States
Shipping Board begins to attain proniinence—and that is
what the shipping board was originally created for by
Congress.

Twenty-five million tons is a lot of shipping. In one
voyage these ships would carry all the live stock, dressed
meats, packing-house products, poultry, game, fish, wool,
hides, and leather carried on our railroads in one year. In
less than five trips they would carry our whole yearly
railroad haul of grain, flour, cotton, hay, fruit, vegetables,
and other farm products; in three and one-half trips all our
lumber; in seven trips all our mantifactured goods; in
sixteen trips all our coal and cake. The total tonnage
hauled on our railroads is about 1,200,000,000 tons.

So, amid all his splendid eíYort in producing equipment
to win the war, the American manufacturer must be asked
to take thought for to-morrow and think in terms of ship-
ping and foreign trade. This might appear like a distrac-
tion now—something which will take the attention from
the supreme duty of winning tlie war. But far from being
a distraction, it fits in with war production and war psy-
chology. While our factories and factory employees are
building war material to-day, they are also building foreign
trade, if we can only see things whole and make one factor
work with another.

When the business man turns his attention to export
trade he looks abroad and thinks of foreign customers.
But foreign trade actually begins in his own factory. He
looks abroad and studies such factors as ocean freight,
foreign exchange, e.xport packing, and international sales-
manship. If he would look into his own factory first, and
study factors close at hand, such as labor turnover, wages,
manufacturing costs and efficiency, he would be laying solid
foundations for export trade.

In a recent study of factors that make successful, lasting
foreign tradc, Prof. Taussig places first of all the element
of manufacturing "efîectivencss," as he calls it, which he
deíĩnes as a combination of capital, labor, invention, sales-
manship, and transportation, all working together under
first-rate business leadership, to make goods capable of
holding markets in competition with the products of other
nations. These elements of efîectiveness are largel)' right
at hand in our factories—it is not necessary to send any-
body abroad to find them. .And as an iUustratidn of how
nations make mistakes in trying to Imild foreign trade at
the othcr cnd, Prof. Taussig sliows tliat real effectiveness
in nianuf.-u'luring ahnost invariably holds its own against





artificial devices for building foreign trade, such as
export bounties, special railroad rates on export ship-
ments, cut prices, discriminatory tariffs, etc.

With the bugaboo of cheap foreign labor haunting us in
former years, we got into the way of thinking that export
trade necessitated some lowering of wages and American
hving standards. Proljably that was crooked thinking
before that export trade necessitated some lowering of
wages and .\merican Hving standards. Probably that was
crooked thinking before the war. Certainly it is crooked
thinking now, for the war is bringing other nations closer
to our American standards of wages and living.

True development of foreign trade in our factories
means better and better American standards.

In most of the countries of the world there wiU be a
decided shortage of labor after the war. That country will
best succeed which protects its workmen by improving their
living conditions, guaranteeing a fair return for labor,
protecting workmen and their families against accidents
and idleness, and making workers better citizens. The
country taking those measures will be the country that
develops and makes products most economically, and will
perform a world service by making goods at the prices fair
to other nations.

Nobody has yet suggested sending cheap American sol-
diers over to France to win the war. Our men at arms are
the pick of the country, physically and mentally. We take
])lenty of tinie to train them, make them specialists in every
branch of fighting. We study them individually to find
which are best suited for flying, or signalling, or Iiombing,
or bayonet fighting. We recognize that modern war is a
swift game, constantly changing, and that our soldiers nuist
be prepared to learn new trades and new tricks f roui montii
to month, and we get ready to teach them these new trades,
and also put them in a receptive attitude toward improve-
nients in the fighting game, We feed them like fighting
cocks, and spare no expense in clothing them or providing
the latest fighting tools.

In the Army and the Navy we liave a visible mobiliza-
tion of man power for results in a foreign country. If we
could have the same visible mobilization of man power in
our factories for foreign trade it wonk! be a splendid
object lesson for those who manage the factories and make
the export goods.

To think of cheapness in connection with foreign trade
is just as wrong as trying to pin bargain tags on soldiers.
Foreign markets are not going to be won or held by cheap-
ened Amcrican workers, or bargain methods in American
life. As manufacturers, we have got to lay the founda-
tions for foreign trade by going out into our factories and
studying labor and costs together. We can sell our export
products at reasonable prices by increasing wages along
(Continued nn pagre 157)