EXCERPTS FROM HEARINGS,

811

petition of the nations at war has made the rates higher and as a result
legitimate trade suffers. We have orders in our files for goods which we can
not shin because the ocean rates are too high.

L. D. Sargent, of the Baldwin Piano Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, stated :
An American merchant marine would help us tremendously in our dealings
with South America and Central America. * * *
I do not know that I have much more to say, except that if we had shipping
facilities which would allow us to ship via a southern port, such as New
Orleans or Mobile, it would be a great help to us in reaching the South
American countries and Central America.

W. H. Miles, export manager of the U. S. Bank Note Co., Indianapolis,
 Ind., manufacturers of bank supplies, lithographs, bank
furniture. and fixtures, said in regard to freight rates:

Were we able to obtain satisfactory export rates in less than carload lots
we would be able to cut our prices somewhat and still further meet the competition
 of German, English, and French manufacturers.
Also in this connection John Olt, export manager of the Judson
Motor Car Co.. Detroit. stated:

The export end of the motor-car business, naturally, during the last five
months of the last calendar year, was very poor in pleasure cars. Since that
time it has improved, but the biggest difficulty in the way of its very rapid
development right now, I think, is in the matter of shipment. We do not
seem to have the difficulty in getting the business, but we have great difficulty
in getting the cars delivered.

Orville Simpson, of the Orville-Simpson Co., Cincinnati, Ohio,
manufacturers of flour-mill machinery, said as to ocean freight
rates

If we must pay our boats more money or foreign boats more money, as we
do in a great many cases, than they would charge for their own exports from
their own countries, it is going to handicap us.
I feel, gentlemen, that if we can work together and have our laws covering
the merchant marine no more severe than the English laws or the German
laws or the Holland laws, it will be a big step in advance toward building
ap our export trade.

H. C. Atkins, president of E. C. Atkins &amp; Co., Indianapolis, Ind.,
manufacturers of saws. said:

It seems to me that there are many vital principles involved in this export
business, such as facilities of shipping, that we can take care of our own
export business with our own ships without passing our goods through the
port at Liverpool or through a foreign port before reaching destination. It
seems to me that we have to provide a means to take care of our export
business to a certain extent, and in doing that we should change our shipping
taws so that they will enable ships to fly the American flag without penalty
attached in the way of expense of operation that precludes the possibility of
profits. That seems to me to be a vital question.

George Puchta, president of the Queen City Supply Co., Cincinnati,
 Ohio, although not personally interested in the export business,
thought that—

The business could be very materially aided by additional shipping facilities,
by additional lines of steamships, and I do not know of anything that is going
to encourage those shipping facilities more than by subsidizing shipping lines
to foreign countries, as foreign countries do at the present time.