Through the cooperation of the Post Office Department and the Shipping Board long-term contracts are being made with American steamship lines for carrying mail, which already promise the construction of 15 to 20 new vessels and the gradual reestablishment of the American merchant marine as a private enterprise.  No action of the National Government has been so beneficial to our shipping.  The cost is being absorbed to a considerable extent by the disposal of unprofitable lines operated by the Shipping Board, for which the new law has made a market.  Meanwhile it should be our policy to maintain necessary strategic lines under the Government operation until they can be transferred to private capital.

INTER-AMERICAN HIGHWAY

In my message last year I expressed the view that we should lend our encouragement for more good roads to all the principal points on this hemisphere South of the Rio Grande.  My view has not changed.

The Pan American Union has recently indorsed it.  In some of the countries to the south a great deal of progress is being made in road building.  In, Others engineering features are often exacting and financing difficult.  As those countries enter upon programs for road building we should be ready to contribute from our abundant experience to make their task easier of accomplishment.  I prefer not to go into civil life to accomplish this end.  We already furnish military and naval advisors, and following this precedent we could draw competent men from these same sources and from the Department of Agriculture.

We should provide our southern neighbors, if they request it, with such engineer advisors for the construction of roads and bridges.  Private interests should look with favor upon all reasonable loans sought by these countries to open main lines of travel.  Such assistance should be given especially to any project for a highway designed to connect all the countries on this hemisphere and thus facilitate, intercourse and closer relations among, them.

AIR MAIL SERVICE

The friendly relations and the extensive, commercial intercourse with the Western Hemisphere to the south of us are being further cemented by the establishment and extension of air-mail routes.  We shall soon have one from Key West, Fla., over Cuba, Haiti, and Santo Domingo to San Juan, P. R., where it will connect with another route to Trinidad.  There will be another route from Key West to the Canal Zone, where connection will be made with a route across the northern coast of South America to Paramaribo.  This will give us a circle around the Caribbean under our own control.  Additional connections will be made at Colon with a route running down the west coast of South America as far as Conception, Chile, and with the French air mail at Paramaribo running down the eastern coast of South America.  The air service already spans our continent, with laterals running to Mexico and Canada, and covering a daily flight of over 28,000 miles, with an average cargo of 15 000 pounds.