"BETTER BABIES"

One of the obscure points in the process of industrial development--the rearing of our Infant Industries--has apparently been solved by Chairman Lasker of the Shipping Board. All through the history of the United States the student is confronted with the problem of Infant Industries. He learns that it is the duty of our legislators to nurture such struggling native enterprise, the very life of which is dependent upon favorable tariff. But professors and books alike all fail to relate what becomes of the little venturers if they thrive under government care. And the student is finally obliged to adopt the conclusion that. Topsy-like, they just grow up.

Important light, however, has been thrown upon the subject by the last-born of our Infant Industries, the new American Merchant Marine. In refuting the charge of government bootlegging. Mr. Lasker declared: "I do not believe I speak inadvisably when I state that so long as foreign ships can enter America serving liquor, the lack of that privilege might be the very determining factor in the life or death of the American merchant marine, and that so long as foreign ships are allowed the privilege of entering and departing from American ports serving liquor that same privilege must be allowed our merchant ships." Apparently infant Industries, like babies, are better bottle-fed, but the nutrient medium need not be milk.

Doubtless some ambitions candidate for the Ph.D. degree will in due time find amusement and profit in a thorough investigation of the early life of other Infant Industries: until then it is use less to speculate further. But the case of the Merchant Marine remains clear cut. Rocked in the cradle of the deep and nourished with the vintage of better years, this lucky foundling may be expected to pass rapidly from infancy to justy childhood. And who knows but that in a few years' time it may assume the same proportions as did our merchant fleet in the days of the rum-runners known to the men of the Revolution.