Meantime, however, the speeded up U-boat and bomber campaign of the Germans against British shipping has built a fire under the Washington authorities. and early transfers of more American ships to the British are likely. A month ago the Maritime Commission announced that there were no mord ships to spate, The British have already brought over 1.250,000 tons of American merchant shipping. and the withdrawal of British ships from various runs, plus the requi-sirioning of new and old American merchant ships by the U. S. Army and Navy. plus the imperative needs of our procurement programme for strategic minerals, have put an immense strain on American shipping, This strain has been reflected not only in the piling up on foreign docks of secondary import commodities sidetracked by the Mar-time Commission for the movement of strategic commodities. but also by the skyrocketing of time-charter rates in the last three months to $8 and $9 or nearly twice the levels of jast December.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.