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Show mm ARE LET m m vessels Deadweight Carrying Capacity Ca-pacity Is 8,000,000 Tons; Available Next Year. XKW YORK. Dec. 14. Contracts have been let by the federal shipping beard for 4000 ships with net deadweight carrying capacity of 8,000.000 tons, Raymond Stevens, vice chairman of the hoard, told the members of tiie Academy of Political Science at the opening of their thirty-seventh thirty-seventh annual meeting here today. He thought that at least 6,000,000 tons would be available next year. Because the navy programme had tied up per cent of all the available ship yards, leaving bu 3.". per cent that the board could utilize, he said it had been necessary to build ship yards, but much had been accomplished. The great need is for man power, skilled in the various branches, and if the plants were in full operation. Mr. Stevens declared, 400.000 additional skilled men would be at work today in ship yards. A public employment agency is working with loeVil agencies and striving to in-qrease in-qrease the labor suprdy, he said, and with fair treatment of labor by the authorities authori-ties and eo.ua! pay in all districts tiie situation is good. Referiing to the fact that 65 per cent of the crews of ships flying the American flag today are of alien citizenship, Mr. Stevens said the hoard was working diligently to make it certain that when the new ships take cargoes the bridges and decks wilt be manned by Americans only. Francis Lee Stuart, chairman of terminal ter-minal facilities of the war board, declared that tiie freight congestion, which had become be-come acute as early as the spring of 1013, was because lailroad facilities had rot kept abreast of the increased traffic. He thought immediate unloading and storing would lie very effectual in releasing needed need-ed cars and was not in favor of the government gov-ernment taking over the roads. |