Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

meaning of this act, all collectors of customs shall thereafter refuse such vessel clearance on any voyage in such trade without the express authorization of the board."

ANALYSIS OF THE BILL

This bill clarifies and strengthens the "fighting ship" clause of the shipping act, 1916, as amended by the merchant marine act, 1920, by defining as a "fighting ship" a foreign vessel used in a particular trade so as to produce unwarranted and excessive competition with American ships. Authority is vested in the Shipping Board, after due notice to all parties in interest, to determine whether a foreign vessel is in a commercial sense a fighting ship within the meaning of the act, and upon certification of such fact to the collector of customs, clearance of such vessel in the trade is thereafter to be refused unless authorized by the board. This is designed to prevent such cut-throat competition as has been produced by certain foreign lines operating their ships between New York and other American ports and Havana and other ports of the West Indies, during the winter season, in competition with American lines which operate in those trades during the entire year. The committee considers it very unfair for foreign ships, when business is slack on their regular runs, to come in and take the cream of the winter season travel between American ports and West Indian ports away from the American ships which operate in these services during the slack seasons, as well as in the winter season. These American lines pay taxes to the United States, while the foreign lines do not.

As evidence of the extreme to which these foreign lines are going, attention is called to the fact that they have recently succeeded in quietly getting the Cuban Congress to enact a bill reducing the tonnage dues on cruise ships arriving at Cuban ports between November 15 and May 31, by 50 per cent on ships under 25,000 gross tons and by 70 per cent on larger ships. The American ships engaged in this service have a tonnage under 25,000 gross tons, whereas the foreign ships which engage in this service during the winter season have a larger tonnage, being ships which engage in the trans-Atlantic trade during other seasons of the year. This is manifestly a deliberate discrimination against American ships regularly engaged in the trade between American ports and Cuba.

The members of the United States Shipping Board appeared at the hearings on this bill and indorsed the bill in principle, but suggested amendments to broaden the application of the bill; the committee did not adopt such proposed amendments, because they would have extended the scope of the bill beyond the purpose and contemplation of the committee, and would have carried the bill into a highly controversial field.

The bill was strongly indorsed by various representatives of shipping interests, including officials of the Neptune Association an organization of American shipmasters and licensed deck officers, the International Seamen's Union of America, the Eastern and Gulf Marine Cooks' and Stewards' Union; the Marine Firemen, Oilers, and Watertenders' Union of the Pacific; American ship lines; and others.

The committee knows of no opposition to the bill from any American source.

о

FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE

FEBRUARY 9, 1932.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. DAVIS, from the Committee on Merchant Marine, Radio, and Fisheries, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 8875]

The Committee on Merchant Marine, Radio, and Fisheries, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 8875) to amend section 8 of the act of June 19, 1886, as amended by section 2 of the act of February 18, 1898 (U. S. C., title 46, sec. 289), having considered the same, report thereon with amendments, and as so amended recommend that the bill do pass.

The amendments proposed by your committee are as follows: Page 2, line 1, insert the word "near-by" before the words "foreign port";

Page 2, line 5, insert the word "near-by" before the word "foreign". In compliance with the rules of the House there follow the present law and the proposed amendments. The matter printed in italics represents the new matter to be inserted:

[ocr errors]

That section 8 of the act of June 19, 1886, as amended by section 2 of the act of February 17, 1898, entitled "An act to amend the laws relating to navigation' (U. S. C., title 46, sec. 289), is amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 2. No foreign vessel shall transport passengers between ports or places in the United States or its possessions, now or hereafter embraced within the coastwise laws, either directly or by way of a near-by foreign port, or for any part of such transportation, nor on a continuous voyage terminating at the port of departure or at any other port in the United States or its aforesaid possessions, notwithstanding that said vessel enters or touches any near-by foreign port on such voyage, under å penalty of $200 for each passenger so transported and landed.

This bill has the unqualified indorsement of the United States Shipping Board and of various American shipping organizations, including shipowners, marine licensed officers, and seamen of various kinds. It also has the indorsement of various other organizations, journals, and persons interested in the American merchant marine. The committee knows of no opposition to the bill from any American

source.

EXPLANATION OF THE BILL

This bill extends the present law prohibiting the carriage of passengers in foreign ships from one United States port to another, so as to prevent a foreign vessel from transporting passengers on a continuous voyage terminating at the port of departure or any other port in the United States or its possessions notwithstanding that the vessel enters or touches any near-by foreign port on such voyage, under a penalty of $200 for each passenger so transported and landed.

This bill will effectively stop the "voyages to nowhere" by foreign ships and particularly the practice now indulged in of the foreign ships taking on passengers at New York, next touching at some West Indies port, and then proceeding to Miami and letting the passengers go ashore for a holiday in Florida. In this manner has American law been circumvented.

Some idea of the character of the competition and its necessary effect upon American ships can be gained from the fact that from November 18, 1931, to January 14, 1932, 28 cruises were made by foreign ships, and there are 64 additional cruises scheduled between January 20 and April 22, 1932. In the winter season of 1930-31, there were 51 such cruises, and during the summer months of 1931, 56 cruises were made, many of short duration to "nowhere."

This competition seriously hurts the business of American ships regularly engaged the year around in our coastwise and West Indies trade, and the time has come to stop it before it works absolute destruction of American shipping interests in these trades and areas. The occasion for the amendments to the bill proposed by the committee is that it was suggested at the hearings that the bill as introduced might be construed to apply to cruises from American ports to the Mediterranean, or continuous round-the-world voyages, or possibly even to continuous voyages from New York to European ports and return on the same ship. As the author of the bill and the committee did not intend for the bill to have such a broad application, but do intend for the provisions of the bill to apply to all ports in North America and Central America and the islands in the waters adjacent thereto, including the West Indies and the Bermudas, the committee adopted the amendments inserting the words "near-by" before the words "foreign port" in the bill; this as a matter of precaution, and in order that the provisions of the bill may clearly and definitely apply as contemplated by the committee.

O

CLARIFY THE APPLICATION OF THE CONTRACT LABOR PROVISIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION LAWS TO SINGERS AND CHORISTERS

FEBRUARY 9, 1932.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed

Mr. DIES, from the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 8978]

The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 8978) to clarify the contract-labor provisions of the immigration act of 1917 with reference to singers and choristers, and for other purposes, having considered the same, reports it to the House with the recommendation that the bill do pass.

During the progress of hearings before your committee, necessity for the proposed legislation was clearly indicated. The purpose is to protect American singers and choristers from the destructive competition brought about by great numbers of alien singers and choristers who gain admission in the guise of "professional artists" exempted from the contract labor laws, whereas such alien singers and choristers are not artists of any kind or in any sense of the word but are only singers or choristers of the most ordinary type coming here for a livelihood at the expense of Americans. The bill is favored by the Bureau of Immigration and the Department of Labor.

There is no justification for admitting numbers of cheap, ordinary alien singers and choristers who are not distinguished at home or elsewhere, who contribute nothing of real art to this country and who come here simply for a livelihood. At this time there is distressing unemployment among American musicians, singers, and choristers, not alone because of the general economic situation, but also because of radical changes in the employment of musical talent and musical leaders that have gradually come about during the past two decades. This condition is seriously aggravated by the admission of these alien singers and choristers of small caliber without distinguishing merit or ability.

That such alien singers and choristers can be and are admitted is due to the construction given by the courts to the contract labor law,

HR-72-1-VOL 1-37

That law when first enacted, in 1885, got off to a bad start in the courts, and notwithstanding subsequent amendments designed to perfect the statute and to lead to a change of judicial construction, the first decisions still persist, and prevail as precedents. The result is that the contract labor law is not construed as a general prohibition from which certain specified classes, including professional artists, are exempted; instead, the prohibition itself is virtually limited and made applicable to manual laborers only. Under such construction, the exceptions, exempting professional artists, etc., have little or no effect. Consequently, the test, in substance, is not whether one seeking admission is a "professional artist" but whether he is a manual laborer; if he represents himself as able to play, in some way or other, however indifferently, some musical instrument he is admitted. The player not being a manual laborer in the judicial sense must be an artist. An alien who played a little on a clarinet was an artist, even if he made the most of his living as a farrier. It has been said, probably with truth, that organ-grinders have been thus admitted; and the same situation prevails with regard to alien singers and choristers who can not, in any real sense, be considered as "artists." It is believed that the proposed legislation is necessary for the rightful protection of the employment opportunities of many American citizens from alien competition; that it is entirely consistent with the principles of the existing immigration laws and is in full harmony with the policy of Congress. A rule is laid down excluding from admission alien singers and choristers who would come here for employment, but that rule carries with it a clarification of the term "artist" or "singer" as applicable to alien singers and choristers who may be of distinguished merit and ability and whose engagements here affirmatively require superior talent.

It is further believed that the proposed legislation will tend to correct a situation, which apparently has developed, whereby a manager here will arrange engagements for a foreign singer or chorister, so alleged, whose admission to this country is effected under the "artist" exemption in present construction of the contract labor laws and then collect back a portion of the compensation secured in this country by such alien singer or chorister.

Some of the important provisions of the existing contract labor law (U. S. C., title 8) are:

That the provisions of this law applicable to contract labor shall not be held to exclude professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, nurses, ministers of any religious denomination, professors for colleges or seminaries, persons belonging to any recognized learned profession, or persons employed as domestic servants.

The foregoing paragraph is the fifth proviso of section 3 of the immigration act of 1917, to which the bill, H. R. 8235, refers.

Persons hereinafter called contract laborers who have been induced, assisted, encouraged, or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment, whether such offers or promises are true or false, or in consequence of agreements, oral, written, or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled.

[blocks in formation]

SEC. 5. That it shall be unlawful for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation or in any way to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit, or attempt to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit the importation or migration of any contract laborer or contract laborers into the United States, unless such contract laborer or contract laborers are

« ÎnapoiContinuă »