The American Merchant Marine

Few are the observers who would have ventured to predict in 1914 that one result of the great World War just opening would be to add 10 000 000 tons of ocean shipping to the merchant marine of the United States, thereby making this country a close rival, as for as total tonnage is concerned, of the United Kingdom which since 18G0 had been the unchallenged “mistress of the seas”. An expenditure of more than $3 500 000 000, the proceeds largely of several issues of Liberty bonds, has given the United States a merchant navy, measured by American methods, of 18 282 000 tons gross register in 1921, as compared with a total tonnage of Great Britain, measured by British methods, of 19 320 000 tons.