Mr. Cross

August 10, 1945

L. Tibbett

Conference Agreement.

#13. Correy

in the course of a telephone sexversation with Mr. C. R. Andrews, of the Trans-Atlantic Conferences, yesterday I brought up Agreements 12 and 13. I stated that although be had finally submitted to us an up-to-cate and complete list of the prevent members, our records were very incmpieto as to the date of aumittance of various lines to these agreements and likewise as to the dates whe other liass had withdraw. lir, Andrews advised that his records were similarly incomplete. He stated that he had consulted with the lines and that their recor if anything, were worse than kis. In so far as he know, there was no way on ear to got these past dates but he emphasised that the present membership list was e rent and up-to-date end would be kept up-to-date. I told him I appreciated what had done and that for the first time in years we have an accurate membership res of these two agreecats but we still neaded the dates of admittance and withdraand I asked about writing the individual lines. He stated that he was convinced this would do absolutely no good, and asked talt wo rofraid from doing so. He f ther pointed out that these agreements dealt with non-competitive matters and the they were merely in the nature of administraţive and consultative arrangements.

I then inquired as to the status of the revised Agreement 12. He stated the all signatures had been received except one and that this one operater (an Ameri fing operator) was being very stubborn but that ultimtely he anticipated he wou sign. I asked if we could do anything to rush this along at this end but he said that in his opinion we could not.

I then referred to agreement No. 13 and asked if that could not be combined with Agreeueat No. 12. Mr. Andrews admitted that Agrement 13 had not been acti for a long time but stated that the lines aid not wish it combined with No. 12 f the reson that No. 13 was limited to the lines serving dew York and permitted of consultation of the New York lines only without calling into a meeting all of the mammaura of Agreument 12. Under the circumstances, he stated it would be much bet ter if nothing were done about . 13 for the present and at least not until 12 out of the way. I advised ár. Andrews that we were no bury right now that we wo have to be "patient" un these matters whether we wanted to or not. In the meanti however, I requested that he continue to push for filing of the new Agreement No.

LT1bbott/rel

L. Tibbott

The CHAIRMAN. A more recent example of unfiled minutes was brought to the subcommittee's attention by correspondence from the files of the United States Lines. In an exchange of letters in December of 1947 and in January of 1948, between Mr. S. H. Richter of that company and Mr. H. D. Carl, their general agent in Shanghai, there is discussion that the New York Freight Bureau in Shanghai at that time never filed minutes, tariffs, and circulars. Was that situation ever remedied, Mr. Morse?

I am informed, Mr. Morse, that the conference is now inactive, but at that time it was active.

Mr. MORSE. Mr. Tibbott, in an aside to me, said that before it became inactive it did file. But I think we would have to check our records to see the extent of the filing.

(Subsequently, the Board advised the committee that the New York Freight Bureau (Shanghai), Agreement No. 5800, filed minutes of meetings, circulars, and tariffs during the time this conference was active. The conference became inactive in 1951. Thereafter these minutes, circulars, and tariffs were transferred to the Board's inactive files in the Archives Building. See Board letter, pp. 904, 905.) The CHAIRMAN. You will check on that?

The documents will be placed in the record at this point.
(The documents referred to are as follows :)

Discussion has arisen here regarding whether the minutes of the Freight Bureau meetings should be forwarded to the Maritime Commission in Washington.

It was a standard practice of conferences which I had previously attended to carry out such a procedure. The conference here is failing to do so and I believe it would be to our benefit to keep the Commission fully informed regarding the se matters.

Before making a definite decision of the matter I would appreciate your advice and an indication of whether the receipt of the minutes of conference meetings is required by the Commission; if not, whether you think it desirable.

HC/cr

Very truly yours,

UNITED STATES LINES

Donald S. Roal

Harold D.Carl
General Agent

Shanghai,

of the New York Freight Bureau, Shanghai and the failure

Maritime Commission,

We were under the impression that the Bureau had been sending copies of minutes of meetings, tariffs and corrections, and circulars covering all activities of the Sonferencs, for failure

wid.

of the Division of Regulations and asked him what the position of his Bureau well be should he discover that fonference of limes operating between a foreign country and ports in the 7. 8. had adda di d

Frankly, he was flabbergasted and stated that the Division

tain a clause requiring Conferen to submit nimtos of meeting .

The CHAIRMAN. Are minutes, tariffs, and circulars perused by Board employees to check for possible evidence of the use of unfiled agreements?

Mr. MORSE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. How can the Board be assured that they receive all such minutes and circulars? Do you give instructions to the conferences to send you all this data? How do you get it?

Mr. TIBBOTT. The conferences are instructed to send these data to us. As far as minutes are concerned, the minutes normally are numbered in sequence.

If there is a number missing, we write for it. We presumably didn't get it. And I believe our records are complete.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you ever make a check on the minutes to see whether the minutes are full and complete, and reflect the exact transactions?

Mr. TIBBOTT. Well, we endeavor to make a check. But I must confess that we get from 200 to 250 minutes a month, and we have only 1 or, at the outside, 2 people that can devote their time to going over the minutes, and they have other duties.

We have been very short handed in that respect.

The CHAIRMAN. So the answer would be that because only two Board people do that, and they have other chores, if it is done, it is done in rather a minuscule manner?

Mr. TIBBOTT. That's right.

The CHAIRMAN. Does the Board employ any investigators for the purpose of discovering the existence of unfiled agreements?

Mr. MORSE. We have three investigators that devote most of their time to section 15 problems. Have we given them instructions to find out if there are any unfiled agreements-I don't think we have given them any instructions as such. But certainly if they hear of anything of that sort in their general investigations, they would obviously follow up on it.

The CHAIRMAN. Have they ever given any evidence of discovery of unfiled agreements?

Mr. MORSE. Not as far as I can recall.

Mr. MEADER. Mr. Morse, the Maritime Board does not have subpena power, does it?

Mr. MORSE. Yes, we do have-but when we have a pending formal investigation.

The CHAIRMAN. Has the Board ever used its subpena power under section 27 of the Shipping Act in order to investigate possible violations of section 15?

Mr. MORSE. Mr. Aptaker recalls one situation when we used the subpena power for that purpose. That was in the Pacific Coast European Conference, an f.o.b.-f.a.s. problem.

The CHAIRMAN. On January 10, 1951, a memorandum from the then Chief of the Regulation Office was sent to the then Chairman of the Maritime Commission concerning the shortcomings in the Regulation Office, and making a number of suggestions for improvements. Has this memorandum ever been brought to your attention? I refer to Board Document B-82.

Mr. MORSE. I don't think so-not as I recall specifically.

But I do know that within the last year I did set up a group of four or five people in our office to survey the activities of the Regulation