Ship Bill

The U. S. Government was last week billed $74,243,000 for the 94 ships, great and small, which it seized from Germany during the War. Under the terms of the Settlement of War Claims Act of 1928 Arbiter James W. Remick finally evaluated, as of July 2, 1921, these craft interned in U. S. ports since 1914 and specified indemnification for their German owners. Chief beneficiaries: Hamburg-American Line ($38,801,000) and North German Lloyd ($27,311,000).

Sixteen of the ships, with names familiar to pre-War ocean travelers, were in the million-dollar class. No. 1 on the list was the 16-year-old Vaterland (now the Leviathan of the U. S. Lines), for which Hamburg-American will be awarded $13,688,000.* U. S. Lines now own three ships for which North German Lloyd will be compensated as follows: George Washington $3,851,000, Amerika (now America) $2,979,000, President Grant (now Republic) $2,389,000. For its Grosser Kurfurst (now City of Los Angeles of the Los Angeles Steamship Co.) the N. G. L. will receive $1,500,000 and for Princess Alice (now City of Honolulu) $1,361,000.

Under the award the U. S. must pay $10,773,000 for seven big ships which long ago disappeared from the sea. Two (President Lincoln and Cincinnati) were sunk as transports in the War. Four (Pennsylvania, Barbarossa, Hamburg and Koenig Wilhelm) have been scrapped. One (Friedrich Der Grosse) burned up in 1922 on the Pacific. The Princess Irene the N. G. L. bought back from the U. S., rechristened it Bremen, changed its name to Karlsruhe when the new Bremen was laid.

Going to pieces with damp rot in the Patuxent River off Chesapeake Bay are the once magnificent Kronprinzessin Cecilie (now the Shipping Board's Mt. Vernon) which at the outbreak of War made its famed dash into Bar Harbor, Me. with a load of German gold, and the Kaiser Wilhelm II (now the Agamemnon). For these N. G. L. will get $4,287,000 and $3,829,000 respectively.

In Germany was great rejoicing at settlement of this major War claim--but the payments will not be completed by the U. S. for 27 years.

*U. S. Lines plan to build two new vessels of the Leviathan class at a cost of $30,000,000 each.

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