Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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R E A L E S TAT E S@(ô)få®-WE)[I BUILDERS Vol. CII. NEW YORK, JULY 27, 1918 No. 4 What WiU Ocean Delivery Service Mean to You? Part New Tonnage Will Play in Woiid's Gommerce After War Described by Head of U. S. Shipping Board By EDWARD N. HURLEY, Chairman United States Shipping Board. AMERICAN business has the best delivery service in the world—for customers at home. The de- partment store not only delivers a spool of thread to a remote suburb on schedule, but delivers it through an interlocking system of motor trucks, light vehicles, branch distributing stations and wagon routes, which speed up service and cut costs. The manufacturer and jobber reach their customers by flexible railroad service extending from the loaded freight car to the emergency express shipment to fill out missing stock numbers—and if these do not suffice they get closer to the customer with branches. This typical American delivery service has been extended to soil products, like California oranges, Colorado canta- loupes, Northwestern red apples, Florida grapefruit, Georgia peaches. By means of the refrigerator car and modern grading and packages, new trade has been built by serving new customers in new ways. But all this delivery development is for our home trade. No country in the world hauls a ton of freight on the rail- roads as cheaply as we do. No country in the world has linked up such vast territory as ours on a modern delivery basis. Almost anything we raise or manufacture any- where in the United States can be hauled profitably, quickly, right side up, in good order—at home. We are not daunted by distance, bulk, expense, or difficulties. If one delivery method won't work, we invent another. But always for ourselves. When we have prime American products to deliver to a foreign customer, it has been our practice thus far to call in the rusty ocean tramp steamer, turn the job over to a foreigner, and forget about it. Imagine a great factory or department store with no delivery system for its customers. When goods are packed, the shipping clerk steps to the door, whistles for any old expressman or teamster, and hands the goods over to him. That is what we have been doing in foreign trade. The more dilapidated the expressman's rig, and the cheaper his bid on the job, the better we thought it. Meanwhile, the Briton and the German have been reach- ing some of the best trade in the world by the best ocean- delivery service. We started our jobbing teamster to South America with our goods and forgot all about him. He promised to get there as soon as he could. While he was on the road, the Briton and the German sped past him with fast delivery trucks of the latest type. But the war is going to change all this. When we get done with our job of making the world safe for democ- racy, we will have 25,000,000 tons of merchant ships, or the equivalent of England's mercantile marine, which is the largest. To-day, we are building ships for war. But each improvement in war shipping brings its correspond- ing improvement in merchant shipping. A year ago we would have been glad to get our hands on ships of any size or type, and our hopes were centered on a large fleet of wooden steamers of moderate capacity. To-day, while still keeping all our wooden shipyards busy, we have in- creased the size to 5,000 tons, and now know that most of this wooden tonnage will be kept in coastwise trade, releasing the steel ships for the war zone. Where we were glad to get steel ships of 5,000 to 7,000 tons a year ago, now we are building them in 8,000 and 10,000 ton types, and planning troop ships of 12,000 and 15,000 and even 20,000 tons, with speeds of 16 to 20 knots an hour. It is none too early for the American business man to begin thinking of these ships in terms of modern delivery service to foreign customers. And not the business man alone, but the farmer, the consumer, the community—the whole American Nation. We must get ships into our thinking, and planning, and work, just as we have got railroads into the American consciousness. When the war ends, there will be work for ships all ovcr the world, Peace will soon make the British mer- cantile marine as strong as ever. The Norwegians and Japanese are building ships. The Germans will undoubt- edly rebuild their mercantile marine. So it is possible to look ahead and see times coming when we must com- pete with these nations. And we shall never hold our own unless both our ships and our foreign trade are organized along the efficient delivery lines that facilitate business at home. We must have ships running to all our customers in Latin America, the Pacific, and Europe on regular delivery schedules. Gennany had the greatest international de- partment-store delivery system in the world before the war. See how her merchant marine was tied up in for- eign harbors. The Hamburg-American line had in 1913 a total of 192 ships, and with these ships it covered 74 regular steamship routes. The North German Lloyd had 133 ships, and its regular routes covered practically the whole world. British shipping is on the same basis of regular routes and regular deliveries. We would not un- derlake to give service to customers at home without our fast freight lines, express facilities, and special cars for special goods. We cannot hope to get close to foreign custoniers, and keep close, and give service, unless we organize our new ships to run on regular routes and em- body thc idea of regular servicc into the ncw forcign trade which we must build. Kegular service on regular steamship routes will be vi- tally nccessary if we are to hold our own either in shipping or export tradc. The other day a steaniship man in my office painted a somcwhat glooniy picture of after-war shipping rivalry. (Coiifiintrd on pagc 88)