Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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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)