Shipping: Requiem for Heavyweights

• Share

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. rescued the U.S.S. Constitution from the wreckers in 1830, when he wrote the memorable poem "Old Ironsides," which begins, "Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!" After a national outpouring of emotion, Congress quickly appropriated funds for the restoration of the frigate. It is still docked in Boston Harbor, a symbol of America's longtime affinity for tall ships and deep water. Poetry may have been enough to save a ship from the scrap heap then, but in an age more closely attuned to the demands of economics the sight of the Stars and Stripes fluttering from the flagstaff of a liner appears to be a luxury that is excessively costly to support.

In less than two years, five of the best-known U.S. passenger ships have been laid up indefinitely: American Export's Atlantic, Independence and Constitution and Moore-McCormack's Brasil and Argentina.

Rumors abound that the pride of the merchant fleet, the United States, will be mothballed at the end of the year, when its annual Government subsidy of about $12 million runs out.

The U.S. Lines has asked for a renewal of the subsidy, but has made no great show of enthusiasm for the idea. The ship often carries fewer than the 1,500 passengers that it needs to break even on a North Atlantic run, and it loses nearly $5,000,000 a year.

No Art. This week President Nixon plans to explain in a policy statement how he proposes to keep a campaign promise to raise the tonnage of U.S. trade carried in American ships from the present 6% to 30% by the mid-1970s. Maritime Administrator Andrew E. Gibson said last week that the Nixon program would support the building of new ships "designed for production, not as works of art." Though Gibson agreed with the proposition that efficient ships can compete internationally without an operating subsidy, he admitted that the end of Government aid was far away. Last year the Government spent $206 million to subsidize the merchant fleet.

Operating subsidies are essentially designed to keep fares on U.S. liners competitive with Greek, Panamanian and other foreign-flag ships by offsetting the wage differential between U.S. and foreign seamen. The rationale has been that U.S. citizens sailing on American ships help narrow the balance of payments deficit by spending their ticket money with domestic instead of foreign companies. It is doubtful, however, that the balance of payments gains are worth spending so much taxpayers' money in the form of subsidies.

Proponents of ship subsidies also wave the issue of national defense. "There are still a lot of military people," says Bernard Ruskin, an official of the National Maritime Union, "who think that a ship like the United States, which can carry a full division and can outrun any submarine, ought to be kept up." But after taking account of its huge fleet of transport planes, the Defense Department announced several years ago that it had no need for passenger ships to carry troops.