32 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.
important carriers for other countries. Even in that role, because
of the geographical position of Norway and Sweden, their ships are
doubtless of more advantage to the over-seas trade of Europe than
to that of America. In neither of these countries, however, does
direct government subsidy play an important part in the development
 of its merchant marine.
The merchant fleet of Italy before the war exceeded 1,000,000 tons,
and by far the greater part-of the total tonnage of vessels entering
and leaving Italian ports was under the Italian flag. For the encouragement
 of the merchant marine the Italian Government paid
subventions, which amounted to 12,000,000 lire in 1912, to 11 different
 maritime companies.
Austria and Holland have taken pains to develop their ocean
shipping, and each is well served by ship lines under its own flag,
which assure its exporters an entry into their chief markets.

UNITED STATES.

The merchant marine of the United States engaged in foreign
commerce ‘on June 30, 1915, included 567 steamships, aggregating
1,333,000 gross tons, and 581 sailing vessels, aggregating 390,000 gross
tons. Many small ‘vessels of both kinds included in the above numbers,
 however, are merely engaged in Puget Sound trade and in
coastwise traffic with the Canadian maritime Provinces, so that the
number engaged in over-seas business is somewhat smaller. On
the other hand, several vessels of foreign registry are owned by
American concerns engaged in foreign trade, but even with these
vessels added the total would be small beside Great Britain’s
20,000,000 tons or Germany’s 5,000,000.
The United States has no great lines of vessels running to all the
markets of the world, nor does it have the cargo boats it needs. Of
its total water-borne exports in 1915 only 11.8 per cent was carried in
American vessels and of its total imports only 18.4 per cent. Thus,
for the carriage of all but a fraction of its foreign business it is
dependent upon foreign ships.

NEED OF AMERICAN SHIPS FOR FOREIGN TRADE.
Dependence on foreign ships.—The failure to develop a merchant
 marine places one of the essentials of commerce beyond American
 control and puts American exporters at the mercy of foreign companies
 whose interests in international trade are often opposed to
theirs. An exhaustive investigation by Congress has shown that
foreign steamship companies are united in an intricate system of

! Movimento della Navigazione del Regno d'Italia, 1914, Roma, 1915, Vol, II, pp. 362-439;
 Sulle Condizionl della Marina Mercantile Italiana al 81 dicembre, 1912, Roma,
1914, p. 133; Annuario Statistico Italiano, 1913. p. 227.