For the future, the American merchant shipbuilding programme remains the chief hope, It is crowded by the naval shipbuilding programme, which is now considerably larger than our naval shipbuilding programme 25 years ago. Three programmes are now under way—the Commission's 1938 programme of 50 ships a year, now far ahead of schedule and likely to produce 75 fast cargo ships and 25 big fast tankers this year; the Todd programme of 60 10,000 ton ships for the British, and the President's recent 200-ship "ugly duckling" programme. Both these latter programmes call for their chief deliveries in 1942, not 1941; some estimates are that not over a half dozen ships will be ready for each programme ths year,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.