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Show IERIC1 SHtPMEN PROTEST COERffl British Charged With Forcing Forc-ing U. S. Vessels to Carry Allies' Supplies. WASHINGTON. March' 7. Measures to meet Great Britain's action in forcing American ships to carry British supplies are under consideration by the federal shipping board. President Wilson's proclamation proc-lamation prohibiting the transfer of American Amer-ican ships to foreign registry without the board's permission, it is said, will be used ns a weapon to stop the British practices. prac-tices. The situation has been made acute by the continued detention of the schooner Mattie Newman of New York, held at Liverpool for several months by inability to make needed repairs because her master mas-ter will not agree to carry war supplies. American ship owners have made bitter bit-ter complaint against British efforts to coerce them into the coal trade between Britain and France and of attempts to force them to carry munitions. American Amer-ican ships that have run short of coal in British ports, it is declared, have been compelled to agree to take coal cargoes to France before the British authorities would permit them bunker coal. One purpose of amendments to the shipping ship-ping bill, lost in the final days of the last congress, was to give the hoard more power In this respect. They would have permitted the board to refuse foreign registry to ships now being built in American Amer-ican yards. As many of these vessels are being constructed for British capital, the board, it Is pointed out, would havo had a powerful weapon with which to compel Great Britain to respect the rights of American owners. The shipping board, it Is understood. e1so intends to take up the question of coaling American ships in the Pacific. Vessels sailing from Kan Francisco to Manlia have been forced to take note of British admiralty restrictions because they had to coal at British coaling station's sta-tion's in China before reaching their destination. |