AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE DISCRIMINATING DUTIES. The United States pni(l $r>0,000,000 more in 18% to foreign steamship companies for currying our imports and exports than tho amount of tuxes collected from internal revenue sources, and $20,000,000 more than was collected in duties in ISO:.’ under the McKinley turiir. In other words, foreign steamship companies tax our people for ocean freights more than they arc taxed under the internal revenue laws, or more than t hey were laved under the McKinley tarilf. SPEECH OF HON. STEPHEN B. ELKINS OF WEST VIRGINIA, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES APRIL 5, 1897. [b'l'oin tin* Coiigntutional Ihct/nL] I behove and havo always boliovod that (bo true method of revival is through discriminating duties ; that the fathers were right.—.Senator William 1' Frys^ Whosoever commands the seu commands tho trade; whosoover commands the trade of the world commands the riches of tho world, and consequently tho world itself. — Sir Walter Raleigh. The merchant service is tho handmaid of all other industries, and of agriculture, utumifne- tures, aud commerce. On the day when tho freight trade is given ovor to foreigners u mortal blow will bo dealt to all the industries of tho country. —Bismarck. The United States has a common interest in the oceans and seas of the world, aud should share in the fruits and benefits that arise from occupying them with its vessels. Shipbuilding means shipowning. The nation that builds ships is always an owner of ships. We favor restoring the early American iKjliey of discriminating duties for tho upbuilding of i 3D our merchant marine nnd tho protect ion of our shipping in tho foreign carrying trade. St. Lotus Republican Motional Platform. The policy of discriminating duties in favor of our shipping, which lire vailed in the early years of our history, should be again promptly adopted by Congress and vigorously supjiorteu until our prestige nnd supremacy on tho scus is fully at- tained. - Letter of acceptance of Hon. William McKinley. Protection is the American principle, and there is no reason why it should stop when it reaches the ocean. If needed, American indus- tries should enjoy protection and have encour- agement wherever they are, on sea or on land. No nation can be truly independent and have and maintain a navy and merchant marine that docs not build its own ships. An amount of money not loss than $4,7)0,000,- 000, or an average of" $ 17),000,IKX) annually, for thirty years pust. has tx»en j»aid out to foreign ships' for ocean transportation.- W. W. Rates, ex-United States Commissioner of Navigation.SPEECH OF Hon, Stephen B. Elkins. The Senate having under consideration the hill (S. 1) to amend section 2502 of the Revised Statutes of the United States— Mr. ELKINS asked that the bill be read. The bill was read as follows : A bill to amend section 2502 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Rep- resentatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled., That section 2502 of the Re- * vised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to . read as fol- lows : “Seo. 2502. A duty of ten per centum ad va- lorem, in addition to the duties now imposed by law, shall be levied, collected, And paid on all goods, Wares, and merchandise imported in ships or vessels not of the United States ; and in cases'where no duties are imposed by law on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States, there shall be levied, col- lected, and paid a duty of ten per centum ad valorem on all such goods, wares, or merchan- dise that shall be imported in ships or vessels not of the United States.” The additional duty imposed und^* the provi- sions of this' act shall apply, under regulations . prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, to all goods,, wares, and merchandise not of the growth, production, or manufacture of coun- tries contiguous to or bordering upon the terri- tory of the United States when imported into the United States by land transportation or land vehicles or conveyances through or from the ports or other places of countries bordering upon the United States if the same shall have been brought to such ports in ships or vessels not of the United States. The additional duty im- posed under the provisions of this act shall also apply to all cases where goods, wares, and mer- chandise are transshipped or transferred from a . foreign vessel, port, or place to a vessel of the United States for the purpose of evading the provisions of this act. And any and all clauses in existing treaties in contravention hereto and all acts of Congress in conflict herewith are abrogated and repealed. * Sec. 2. That this act shall take effect fifteen, months after the date of its passage. THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE THE LEAD- ING MARITIME NATION IN THE WORLD. Mr. ELKINS. Mr. President, under a proper policy of encouragement to Araer- ican shipping the United . States, with its 8,000 miles of seacoast, its navigable rivers and lake coast, fine harbors, va- riety of climate, productive capacity, rapidly increasing population, its posi- tion on the globe—Asia on one side with 600,000,000 and Europe on the other side with 400,000,000 of people—should be) the leading commercial and maritime pojwer of the world. j This would be the proud positioj^i of the United States to-day had protection to American interests on the sea granted by the founders of the Government in the early legislation of Congress Leen continued. Our progress on land ^n a century is unsurpassed in the history of material development, while our prog- ress in shipping has languished uijader the policy of maritime reciprocity. Until our flag is unknown on many seas, j and with some nations has almost become a myth. ' ' ; No nation has ever been truly great nor an important factor in the affairs of the world unless it has been great op the sea. The United States cannot reaclji its full growth and measure of progress until its shipping and commerce are Rela- tively equal to its industries on land,1' SHIPPING AS A RESOURCE OF DEFENSE. During the last forty years the people of the United States have been so occu- pied with internal development, explor- ing and exploiting the West, build- ing railroads, opening mines, establish- ing manufactures, that they have notgiven that attention to shipping it de- serves. The time is at hand, however, when the opportunities on land have so diminished that business men seeking careers and fortunes in the commercial world must turn to the seas. The advice of Horace Greeley, good at its time, “ Go West, young man, and grow up with the country,” has ceased to be good advice now. The West has been seized, occupied, and the opportunities for maks ing money are no greater there than in the East ; so that advice to young men of the country should be to return to the -pursuits, practices and customs of their fathers, go to the seas for a career and gather wealth from shipping and trade with foreign lands. The United States pays $500,000 every day, or nearly $8 per capita per annum, to foreign shipowners for carrying what its people sell and buy. This enormous sum, or most of; it, under a proper pol- ' icy of aid to shipping, would be saved to the country. ■! Apart from the importance of encour- aging shipping purely as a branch of in- dustry that brings returns to those en- gaged in it, employment for labor, and consumption of raw and manufactured material, it has an added importance and becomes a matter of national concern fr.om the standpoint of defense. : In a report to Congress on commerce and navigation, made by Mr. Jefferson as Secretary of State in 1793, speaking of navigation, he said : Its value as a branch of industry is enhanced by the dependence of so many other branches upon it. In times of general peace it multiplies competitors for employment in transportation, and so keeps that at its proper level; and in times of war, that is to say, when those nations who may be our principal carriers shall be at war with each other, if we have not within, our- selves the means of transportation, our produce must be exported in belligerent vessels, at the - increased expense of war freight and insurance* and the articles which will not bear that must perish on our hands. navigation will admit neither neglect nor for' bearance. : OPPOSITION AND DIFFICULTIES -TO BE OVERCOME. Any plan or policy that may be devised for building up American shipping on the high seas will meet with serious oppo- sition from the shipowning nations of the world. Even among our own people opposition will be developed. But we must not be deterred from the perform- ance of a plain duty because of difficul- ties and opposition at home and abroad. Difficulties lie in the pathway of prog- ress. No great thing comes to a nation, a community, or an individual without effort and difficulties to overcome. The United States has a common in- terest in the oceans and seas of the world, and should share in the fruits and benefits that arise from occupying them with its vessels ; especially should it have the largest share in carrying its own foreign trade. Because of the op- postion of Great Britain and countries which control the shipping of the world and enjoy what we once had, we must not surrender our rights on the seas and fail to reach out and take again what naturally belongs to us. .' FOREIGN CAPITAL FOCUSED AGAINST AMER- ICAN INTERESTS. I do not underestimate the influence and power of the forces arrayed against American shipping, which have helped to bring it to its present deplorable con- dition, and. which will fight to pre- vent its restoration. These forces are united, vigorous, and determined, while we are divided as to policy. It is hard to build up a business in opposition to one already established, and where the advantages are massed on one side. A thousand millions of invested foreign capital will be focused against any at tempt to build up American interests on the high seas ; this capital will have its But it is as » resource of defense that, our influence ; already it is being felt. Be-hind foreign shipping there is not only great capital bnt a great interest to main- tain, and in order to hold its present position this interest will nse every means in its power, and attempt to mold public opinion against any plan or policy of aid to shipping the United States may adopt. CONTINUOUS BRITISH RIVALRY INEVITABLE. The greatest contest will be with Eng- land for commercial supremacy. Great Britain will resist every step in the direc- tion of restoring American shipping. She would not be true to her people, her Qom- mercial instincts, traditions and'interests were she not to make every effort in her power to maintain her supremacy on the seas. What agriculture is to the United States shipping is to England, and Eng- land will use all her endeavors, through wise statesmanship and diplomacy, to protect the same. Against this there can be no reasonable objection on our part. It is the province of English statesman-, ship to maintain the commercial suprem- acy of Great Britain on the high seas. It is manifest destiny that the United States shall dispute this supremacy and with its position and advantages control not only its own but the larger part of the carrying trade of the world. We may agree with England on most subjects, but on the subject of shipping and commerce we never can. Lord Rob- ert Cecil, the present Lord Salisbury and Prime Minister of England, in the Eng- lish Parliament, early in 1862 said : Everyone who watches the current of history must know that the Northern States of Amer- the same position. We both aspire to the gov- ernment of the seas. We are both manufactur- ing people, and in every port, as in every court, we are rivals to each other. This is a true and candid statement of the facts as they exist and will continue ica never can be our true friends, for this simple reason: Not merely because the newspapers write at each other, or that there are prejudices on both sides, but because we are rivals; rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to 4 to exist. We cannot, and should not, attempt to conceal them. Great Britain will not easily give up what she has gained on the sea in two hundred years. She knows that a struggle with the United States for commercial supremacy is inevitable and is preparing for it. England, an island in area not greater than one of our States, is at once the child and ruler of the seas. Sir Walter Raleigh said : Whosoever commands the sea commands”the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the- riches of the world, and, consequently, the world itself. PROTECTION TO SHIPPING ADOPTED BY THE FIRST CONGRESS. , The first and most important question of national policy that engaged the at- tention of the makers of the Government after^the adoption of the Constitution Was what could or should be done by legislation to provide revenue and en- courage manufacturing and shipping^ These questions were widely discussed in the State legislatures and in the press of the country. Following th$ agitation, the First Congress levied duties on goods, wares and merchandise im- ported into the United States for the pur- pose of raising revenue and to encour- age manufacturing, and by the same and other acts in order to encourage shipping, additional duties were imposed on goods, wares and merchandise imported in ves sels not of the United States. Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years of Congress, says : ' The principle of protecting the manufactures, and encouraging the navigation of. America had been distinctly proclaimed in the first law of the new Government, and was thus made in a suggestive and emphatic sense the very corner stone' of the republican edfice which the pa- triots of the Revolution were aiming .to con- struct. * .* ’ ' : The acts of Congress providing dis- criminating duties were taken from the ' navigation laws of Great Britain, then in force for more than one hundred. years and which were not repealed for nearly sixty years afterwards. The policy of protection to our manufacturing in- terests has been continued from 1789 until now, and the results have justified the wisdom, not only of adopting such a policy in the first instance, but in ad- hering to it. The policy of protecting our iake and coastwise shipping by excluding from it foreign vessels has also remained in force & hundred years and borne the best re- sults. The only instance in which we have departed from the teachings of the fathers and given up the protective policy they adopted has been to ocean carrying. In adhering to the policy of protection to our manufactures and to shipping in . the coastwise trade, the United States is now the leading nation in manufactur- ing, and our coastwise trade is the larg- est in tonnage and the most prosperous in the world. By giving up protection to shipping on the high seas, it has declined until we now carry only 11 per cent, of our foreign commerce, while our ships under dis- criminating duties from 1789 to 1828—a period of 40 years—carried on an average nearly 90 per cent. ' LEGISLATION FAVORING DISCRIMINATING DUTIES. ~ " In order to a better understanding of this question, a brief history of the legis- lation of Congress on the subject of ship- ping and the results that have followed will be helpful. v\ It is an historical fact that while we : were colonies of Great Britain it was the policy of the mother country to discour- age manufacturing, shipping and ship- building in the colonies, in order that these branches of industry might be bet- ter fostered at home. About this time the King of England declared that nothing but sloops should : be built in the American colonies. They W9 the surliest sized vessels and of little consequence in the foreign trade. All other ships engaged in commerce be- tween the two countries had to be built, in England. For six years previous to the adoption of the Constitution—that is, from 1783 to 1789—shipping in our foreign trade was for the most part in the hands of the shipowners of Great Britain. A COURAGEOUS POLICY. The second act passed by Congress, introduced by Madison, was a tariff act, and provided protection to manu- facturing. In this act protection to shipping was also provided by increas- ing duties on certain goods imported in foreign vessels. By the same act it was also provided that the duties on goods imported from the East Indies should be 12% Per cent, ad valorem, which was about double the duties on the same class of goods1i brought in American ships. The following figures, taken from the re- port of Commissioner of Navigation Wil- liam W. Bates, show the difference in duties on teas under this act : DUTIES ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF TEA (PER POUND). Manner of importation. Bohea. if i Other green- From China or India in Cts, cts. Cts. Cts... American ships From Europe in Ameri- can vessels In any other way than 6 10 10 12 8 13 26 16 as above 15 22 45 27 This table shows that the duties were more than doubled when teas were imported in foreign ships. Mr. Bates adds :• As a general protection to the marine in other, tradesthan that to China and India, a rebate of 10 per cent, was allowed on importations by vessels of our own. At the time of this statute it was the rule in foreign commerce for the mer- chants to own their shipping. But our mer- chants, whether owners or not, were ^reetly6 protected by a system of credit for the payment of duties above $50 in amount, as follows : On articles of "West India produce, four months ; on Madeira wines, twelve months; on teas, two years; on all other goods, six months. This was a bold policy on the part of a nation in its infancy, and in face of the opposition of the foreign shipping, but it seemed to be the most effective way open to our fathers for building up ocean carrying. The next measure of protection was . imposing tonnage duties by act of Congress approved July 20, 1789, under which the duties were as follows : Cts. On all vessels American built, owned by citizens; or foreign built, owned by citi- zens the 29th of May, 1789, and while owned by citizens, per ton.......... 6 On all vessels hereafter built in the United States, partly or wholly owned by for- eigners, per ton.................. 30 On all other ships or vessels, at the rate of, per ton ............................. 50 Other advantages were allowed Ameri- can shipowners in the payment of ton- nage dues. They had to pay only once a year, while the owners of foreign vessels had to pay on every arrival. By another act of Congress, approved September 1, 1789, it was provided that none but American built vessels should fly the American flag. This law is stilt in force. Additional protection was granted to American shipowners and shipbuilders by an act approved July 4, 1794. This act provided for the increase of duties on goods, wares and merchandise imported in vessels not of the United States. Sec- tion 4 of this act is as follows : , That an addition of 10 per cent, shall be made to the several rates of duties above, specified and imposed in respect to all goods, wares, and mer- chandise which, after the said last day of June instant, shall be imported in ships or vessels not of the United States. The bill under consideration is in prin- ciple the same as this section. PROTECTION TO OUR COASTWISE TRADE. ' By act of Congress approved February 18, 1798, and followed by another on the §ame subject approved March 8, 1817, it is provided that none but American built vessels shall be used in the coastwise, river, and lake trade of the United States. This has remained substantially the law for more than one hundred years. Under these acts no foreign built vessel can en- gage in our coastwise trade, and Ameri- can vessels in such trade have abso- lute protection and ho competition from foreign vessels. All of these acts except the one passed in, 1817 were ap- proved by Washington as President. Congress in the first five years of its existence passed three aets to protect shipping, each one confirming the wis- dom of the preceding one, and all con- tributing to increase shipping and ship- building in the early history of the Gov- ernment. The first year after the passage of the act of Juiy 4, 1-7C0, providing discrimi- nating duties, American ships carried 40, the second year 50, tho third 65, the fourth 79, and tho fifth year 88 per cent, of our foreign commerce. And this increase was substantially main- tained until 1828, when protection to shipping by discriminating duties was conditionally suspended by acts of Con- gress and treaties with Great Britain and other countries. The effect of this legislation in increasing shipping in our foreign commerce was phenome- nal. The progress made not only vindi- cated .the wisdom of passing such acts, but went beyond the expectations of the friends of shipping. These acts, while increasing shipping in our foreign com- merce, had the effect to decrease British shipping correspondingly, , as will be seen by the following table showing the ton nage of British vessels admitted to Amer- ican ports in the early stage of discrimi- nating legislation : _ “ • : nage. $8?.......•••BIS" Beginning with 218,000 tons in 1790, British shipping in our foreign com- merce declined during these six years to 19,000 tons. British tonnage gained little in our ports in the early years of the present century, hut was again re- duced to almost nothing in 1810, 1811, and 1812, until the war of that year. Year, Ton,SOME RESULTS OF DESCRIMINATING DUTIES. The beneficial results of discriminat- ing duties in building up our shipping will be found in the records of the Treas- ury Department. From these records it appears from 1789 to 1800 the carrying of our imports in American ships in- creased from 1734 to 92 per cent, and of our exports from 30 to 88 per cent.; and from 1800 to 1810 this increase was sub- stantially maintained, making the aver- age of our foreign commerce carried in American ships for the period from 1800 to 1810, 9134 per cent, of our imports and 87 per cent, of our exports. By an act of Congress approved in 1804 tariff duties were increased 234 Per cent., and again it was provided that “ an addition of 10 per. cent should be made to the said additional duty in respect to all goods imported in ships or vessels not of the United States. ” Owing to foreign wars, the United States did not keep up the average from 1801 to 1805 of the car* riage in American ships of our foreign commerce, but during this adverse period, made so by war between France and England and other wars, American ships carried 89.8 per cent, of our im- ports and 86 per cent, of our exports.' From 1805 to 1810, our proportion of American carriage in the foreign trade increased until it reached 9234 Per cen^ of the imports and 8834 Per cent, of the exports. In 1810 our share in the carrying trade of the world was about as great as that of England. Alarmed at the successful progress of . American shipping under discriminating duties England brought on the war of 1812, it is said partly for the purpose of breaking it down. On the whole from 1810 to 1830 there was but little decline in American carry- ing in our foreign trade.. During the war of 1812 our proportion of carrying in our foreign trade only de- clined to 58 per cent, of our imports and 51 per cent, of our exportsr which was the lowest point it had reached under the policy of discrimination ; but this loss was recovered in the following five years and maintained until 1830. , v The policy of discriminating duties not only increased our shipping, but it built up a merchant marine and a navy which stood us well in hand in the war of 1812. If our fathers had not in their wisdom provided ately after the adoption of the Constitu- tion, our carrying would have largely remained in the hands of foreign ship- owners, and in the war of 1812 we would have been without a merchant marine and without a navy or seamen to man it —simply powerless and defenseless on the high seas—and we would have suf- fered defeat instead of achieving a great victory. It is a remarkable fact that Madison in the First Congress intro- duced the bill that protected shipping, its passage being urged on the ground that it would build up a merchant ma- rine and a navy which would be useful in time of war, and during the war of 1812 he was President and used the navy built up under his bill to save the United States from defeat. YIELDING TO BRITISH PERSUASIONS^ After the close of the war of 1812 there grew up in the United States a party de- sirous of conciliating England. The Presi- dent and Congress lent willing ears to the importunities of this party and the proposal of English statesmen to remove restrictions against foreigners and for- eign-built vessels in the American carry- ing trade. All the arguments-for free trade in shipping, maritime reciprocity, and neighborly f eeling in doing business, good in theory and on paper,, were 4, 1815, which inaugurated what was known as “ limited maritime reciproci- ty, 9 ’ and thus took away some of the pro- tection to shipping granted under the laws of 1789 and 1794. In this act it was provided— That so much of the several acts imposing. £5 U Vyi-lCVi-lU.JLC>CJ JLX-LX^UA UtJU. AJLLUJ the United States, as imposes a discriminating Juty on tonnage between foreign vessels and vessels of the United States, and between goods imported into the United States in foreign ves- ixe&meuu ui. uuw umieu Dianes snan oe sansnea. that the discriminating or countervailing duties been abolished. s .. This was the first direct attack on dis- criminating duties. It was soon followed by a treaty between the United States and England, negotiated July 3, 1815, to reg- ulate commerce between the two coun- tries. The main provisions of this treaty, for the protection of shipping immedi- according . to ex-Commissioner of Navi-8 Second. No higher or other duties on pr< tions of each country than on those of othe gation Bates, were in substance as fol- lows : First. Reciprocal liberty oflcommerce^between the territories of the United States and the British territories in Europe, but not in Amer- oduc- .er f or- .___„ of duties on American and )ls in Great Britain and the United States. Fourth. No discriminative duties on importa- tions, whether by American or British vessels, in either Great Britain or the United States. Fifth. Equality of duties, bounties, and draw- backs, and whether in British or American ves- Sixth. Intercourse with the West Indies not to be affected by this convention. Seventh. Vessels of the United States per- mitted to trade direct to and from the prin- cipal British dominions in the East Indies in ar- ticles not prohibited in time of war, and not to pay more duties or charges thaq vessels of the most favored nation either on vessel or cargo. Commissioner of Navigation Bates commenting on this treaty says : The provisions of this treaty, obligatory for four years, have become by acts and proclama- tions the rule of commercial intercourse be- tween the United States and Great Britain, though when it was made that nation did not grant us full “ reciprocal liberty of commerce.” She kept us out of her Wost India ports for fif- teen years, and out of her North American pos- sessions for thir*-v-five years afterwards. In 1817 Congress passed another ■act’of reciprocity, which had the effect of fur- ther impairing protection to American shipping. In 1819 our shipping had fallen lower than it had been for twenty- two years. FINAL ACT OF RUINOUS RECIPROCITY. The “ free-freighting act ” of 1828, as it was called, was in the interest of for- eign shipowners. This act and the sub- sequent treaties about accomplished the ruin of our carrying in the foreign trade. While advantage of it was soon taken by a few of the lesser maritime nations, it was not availed of by the more powerful, - notably Great Britain, for many years, in consequence of which our losses of carriage were fnore gradual and less no- ticed than they would have been had the discrimination ceased upon its adoption. This act is even now in force, and na- tions are not yet done asking for itslbene- fits. The treaties following it have brought us not one, but destroyed all advantages we had 'under protection by discriminating" duties. During the four years of the civil war American ships lost in carrying our im- ports about 80 per cent. , and our exports 45 per cent. From the close of the war until 1890 those losses have been about 14 per cent, in carrying imports and 17 per cent, of exports. - The following table shows the losses in our carrying before, during, and since the war : Period. Im- ports. Ex- ports. Before the war, 31 years, from Pet ct. Perct. 1829 to 1860 33.60 14.20 During the war, 4 years 30.10 46 Since 1865,25 years 13,30 17.07 Percentage of carriage, 1830 93.60 86.30 Percentage of carriage, 1890 16.60 9.03 Loss from 1830~to 1890 77 77.27 This table covers sixty years of the period of maritime reciprocity under treaties with foreign countries. On the 7th of January, 1824, another act was passed which impaired discrim- inating duties. The last act on the sub- ject was approved May 24, 1828, styled in its time “A' bill for the relief of Eng- land,” which withdrew all protection to American ships and shipbuilding that these branches of industry had enjoyed under early acts of Congress. This act is as follows : That upon satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States by the Government of any foreign nation that no dis- criminating duties of tonnage or impost are im- posed or levied in the ports of said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States, or upon the produce, manufac- tures or merchandise imported in the same from the United States, or from any for- eign country, the President is hereby author- ized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far : as respects tho vessels of the said foreign nation* and the produce, manufactures, and merchan- dise imported into the United States in the same lrorn tho said foreign nation or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take ef- fect from the time cc such notification being given to the President of the United States, and to continue so long as tho reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of tho United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer. Notwithstanding the war of 1812, un- der the policy of discriminating duties American carrying continued to prosper until England became alarmed at bur great progress. Having failed to break9 down onr shipping by war, she persuaded the United States to adopt maritime reciprocity. In 1827, the year before the final act of Congress was passed for the abadonment of the policy of discriminat- ing duties, the London Times said : It is not our habit to sound the tocsin on light occasions, but we conceive it to be impossible to view the existing state of things in this country without more than apprehension and alarm. Twelve years of peace, and what is the situation in Great Britain ? The shipping interest, the cradle of our navy, is half ruined. Our com- mercial monopoly no longer exists; we have closed the western Indies against America from feelings of commercial rivalry. Its active sea- men have already engrossed an important branch of our carrying trade to the East Indies. Her starred flag is now conspicuous on every sea, and will soon defy our thunder. Yet in face of this admission and con- fession of the success of the United States on the sea and growth of American ship- ping under discriminating duties, the next year Congress was induced to give up the last remnant of protection to ship- ping. After thirty years of trial and experi- ence under protection and discriminating duties, Daniel Webster said in 1825 : We have a commerce which leaves no sea un- explored; navies which take no law from su- perior force. Discriminating duties' were partially repealed in 1815 and their suspension was made possible on certain conditions by the act of 1828. The following table, taken from the reports of the Com- missioner of Navigation and the records of the Treasury Department, shows the growth of American carrying under dis- criminating duties and its decline under maritime reciprocity : Comparative statement showing proportion of American foreign commerce carried in Amer- ican ships from 1789 to 1896. growth.—1789 to 1828. Period of protected careying un der discriminat- Foreign trade " .. , shipping. Imports. Exports. Total. Per Per Per Year. Tons. 1789.. ...... 123,893 11:::::::: SMS 1794.. ...... 438,868 Ig| s-....... St:::::: '!?:!!? 1801.. ....;. 630,658 cent. r cent. 30 40 52 IF 67 61 64 82 77. . 79.5 91 86 88.5 92 88 90 94 90 92 92 88 90 91 87 89 90 87 88.5 91 87 89 ~ 91 , 87 89 growth.—Continued. 1802 88 85 . 86.5 1803 .. 585,510' 86 83 ; 84.5 1804 91 86 88,5 1805...... 93, 89 91 1806...... 93 * 89 91" 1807 .. 810,163 94 90 1808.... 93 88 90.5 1809 .. 906,855 88 84 ■86 1810 93 90 ; 91.5 1811 .. 763,607 90 86 88, 1812. 85 80 82.5 1813. 71 65 68 • 1814...... .. 674,633 58 51 54.5 1815 .. 854,295 77 71 1816 .. 800,760 .73 68 ■ 70.5 1817...... 79 .74 76.5 1818 . 85 80 82.5 1819 .. 581,230 87 82 84.5 1820 .. 583,657 90 89 89.5 1821 .. 593,825 92.7 84.9 88.7 1822 .. 582,701 92.4 84.1 88.4 . 1823 .. 600,003 92.1 87.4 89.9 1824...... .. 636,807 93.4 88.7 91.2 1825 95.2 89.2 92.3 1826 .. 696,221 95 89.6 92.5 1827 ... 701,515 94.3 87.5 90.9 1828 .. 757,998 91.4 84.5 88.9 DECLINE.—1829 to 1896. Period of unprotected carrying under reciprocity. Foreign trade shipping. Imports. Exports. Total. Per Per Per Year. 1829 Tons. . 592,859 cent. 93 cent. 86 cent. 89.5 1830 . 537,563 93.6 * 36.3i» 89.9 1831 538,136 91 80.6 86 5 . 1832 . 614,121 • 89.4 75.8 83.1 1833 . 648,869 90.7 75.5 83.8 1834 . 749,376 89 74,4 83 1835* . • 788,173 90.2 77.3 84.5 1836 753,094 90.3 75.4 84.3 1837 . 683,205 86.5 77.6 _82.6 1838., . 702,962 90.6 82.8 84.2 1839 702.400 88.7 78.3 84.3 1840 763,838 86.6 - 79.9 82.9 1841 . 788,398 88.4 77,8 83,3 1842c 823,746 88.5 76.3 82.3 1843*....., . 856,930 77-1, ' '77 v 77 1 1844 . 900,471 86.7 70.5 * 78.6 1845........ . 904,476 87.3 75.8 81.7 . 1846....... . 943,307 87.1 76.2 81.7 1847 . 1,047,454 77.2 65.3 ( 70.9 1848....... . 1,168,707 82.9 71.1 77.4 1849....... 81.4 68.9 75,2 1850 . 1,439,694 77.8 ■ 65.5 72.5 1851 . 1,544,663 75.6 69.8 72.7' 1852 . 1,705,650 74.5 66.5 70 5 1853 . 1,916,471 71.5 67.1 69;5 1854. . 2,151,918 71.4 69.3 70.5 1855....... . 2,348,358 , 77.3 73,8 75.6 1856.. . 2,302,190 78.1 70.9 75.2. 1857....... . 2,268,196 71.8 60,2 70.5 1858...;..., . 2,301,148. . 72 / 75 . 73,7 1859 . 2,321,674 63.7 69,9 66.9 1860 . 2,379,396 63 69.7 66.2 1861.:...., . 2,494,894 60 -. 72.1 65.5 1862....... . 2,173,537 44.8 54.5 50 - 1863....... . 1,926,886 43.3 40 41.4 1864.. . 1,486,749 24.6 30 27.5 1865 . 1,518,350 29.9 26.1 27.7 1866.......- . 1,387,756 ' 25.1 37.7 32.2 1867....... 1,515,648 28 39.1 33.9 1868. 1,494,389 33 36.6 35.1 1869....... . 1,496,220 31.3 34.9 33.1 * Nine months only. >decline.—Continued. 1870...... .. 1,448,846 33.1 37.7 35.6 1871...... 31 32.6 31.9 1872...... 26.8 29.8 29.2 1878; .. 1,378,533- 27 25.7 26.4 1871.. .. 1,389,815 30.2 24.6 27.2 1875 .. 1,515,598 29.2 23.7 26.1 1876...... .. 1,553,705 30.8 25.4 27.7 1877...... 31.5 23.7 26 9 1878..... .. 1,589,348 32.2 22.6 . 26.3 ' 1879...... .. 1,451,505 31.6 17.6 23 1880 .. 1,314,402 22 13.7 17.4 1881. .. 1,297,035 19.9 13.3 16.5 1882...... .. 1,259,492 19.2 12.8 15.8 1883. .. 1,269,681 20.7 13.4 16 / 1884....... ,, 1,276,972 22.4 14.4 17.2 1885...... .. 1,262,814 21.3 13.7 15.3 1886 .. 988,041 20 13.6 15.5 1887. .. 989,412 18,6 12.2 14.3 1888 .. 919,302 18.5 11.79 14 1889 .. 999,619 17.08 11.62 14.3 1890...... .. 928,062 16.68 9.03 12.9 1891...... .. 988,719 15,85 9.26 12.5 1892...... .. 977,624 17.66 .8.11 12.3 1893 .. 883,199 15.5 8.8 12.2 1894...... 899,698 19.4 8.7 13.3 1895, .. 822,347 15.5 8.2 11.7 1896.;.... .. 829,833 15.7 8.5 . 12 ; It will be seen from this comparative statement that in the first six years of protection our import carriage in Ameri- can ships reached 94 per cent, and our export carriage 90 per cent. This was an extraordinary growth. Thereafter we could not expect to reach these figures every year, but did in 1807 ; and in 1825 we carried 95.2 per cent, of imports and 89.2 per cent, of exports. The average proportionate carriage for the period of protection—thirty-nine years—including the war of 1812, was, for imports, 85.64 per cent., and for exports 76.81 per cent. Our carriage in 1829 was, imports, 93 per cent., and exports 86 per cent. From these high figures it has dwindled down in 1896 to 15.7 per cent, for imports and 8.5 per cent, for exports. A careful study of the tables just read tells the whole story as to the merits of the policy of discriminating duties on one hand, and free carrying under maritime reciprocity on the other. They show clearly and unmistakably the good results that followed discriminating duties from 1789 to 1830, and they show, with equal Clearness, the baneful effects shipping suffered from 1830 to 1896, a period of sixty-six years -under maritime 'reci- procity, the decline bping about 77 per cent. Placing these tables side by side, we have the naked facts. No amount of sophistry, no amount of explanation, no amount of specious argument can change these facts and the results of these two policies. All impartial minds must agree, in the face of this showing, that the pol- icy of maritime reciprocity has not only been a failure, but under it American shipping in our foreign trade and throughout the world has been well-nigh ruined. . The other conclusion forces it- self upon the mind that shipping to grow and prosper as an industry must be pro- ' tected as it was in the early history of the Government. Protection is the American principle, and there is no rea- son why it should stop when it teaches the ocean. If needed, American indus- tries should enjoy protection and have en- couragement wherever they are, on sea or on land. If protection to industries-on land and to shipping in our coastwise trade has been necessary and maintained for a hundred years, why should it not have been continued as to industries on the high seas ? They are quite as important as manufacturing and other interests are on land. SHIPPING LEGISLATION SINCE 1830. Between 1830 and i860 there was little or no legislation in favor of shipping, ex- cept the subsidy act of 1845, which was in operation about twelve years, being repealed by an act of Congress approved by President Buchanan June 14, 1858.,. During the existence of this act American carrying in our foreign trade increased, but declined after its repeal. While in force, in order to counteract its good effects, Great Britain increased her sub- sidies to English shipping from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 per annum. For the last thirty years, although there has been from time to time much discussion in and out of Congress on the subject of building up the merchant marine and lamentations that American carrying was constantly declining, and general expressions that something should be done looking to its revival, yet during this period, while' many acts of Congress were passed bearing on the subject, only four have been important enough to be mentioned. These are as follows : The act approved February 18, 1867, ; appropriating $500,000 for China mail:’ service and $150,000 for Brazil mail serv- ice ; Act approved June 1,1872, authorizing the Postmaster-General to make a con- tract with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company for foreign mails between San. Francisco, Japan, and China ; Act approved June 6, 1872, which pro- vided that all foreign materials for build-ing vessels for use in the foreign trade should be admitted free of duty ; and an Act approved March 3, 1891, commonly known as the postal subsidy act. It is not necessary now to discuss the merits of this legislation, for the reason that with all these acts in full force carrying in our foreign trade has con- stantly declined. All attempts for fifty years to aid shipping by mail pay and subsidies have been failures, and it still remains for Congress, in the face of these failures, to adopt a protective policy for the upbuilding of the American mer- chant marine. NAVIGATION LAWS OF GREAT BRITAIN. It would take too much time to give a complete history of the navigation laws of Great Britain passed during the last two hundred and fifty years, and only a brief outline of their provisions can be mentioned here showing their object and what they accomplished. The famous navigation act was passed to encourage English merchant shipping. It was first promulgated in 1651 under Cromwell, but remodeled in 1660 under Charles II. ! It was devised to regulate the following : 1. Coasting trade. 2. Fisheries. / 3. Commerce with the colonies. 4. Commerce with the countries of Europe. 5. Commerce with, i^sia, Africa, and America.' ' : Under its regulations the following re- strictions were imposed : t. Coasting trade was exclusively re- stricted to British vessels ; crews wholly English. ., .. 2. Double duties were imposed on prod- ucts of foreign fisheries. 3. Commerce with colonies exclusively restricted to British vessels. Though reciprocity with colonies from time to time Was introduced when it would not be hurtful to British shipping. . ,4. Commerce with European countries Was restricted to British vessels or to vessels owned by the country exporting the commodities. All imports in foreign ships, were subjected to discriminating duties by tariff act of 1652. 5. Commerce with Asia,--Africa, and America was exclusively restricted to British vessels. Nothing from these countries could be imported into Eng- land through any f oreign country, - Only those ships were considered Brit- ish whose hulls were built in England, and three-fourths of whose crews were English subjects. This act remained in force from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty years without material change. The success of the American Revolution was one of the main causes of its modifi- cation. In 1825 the act was entirely remodeled. It was again revised in 1833 and 1845, by which latter revision the original act was so completely restored that it seemed to all intents and purposes to have been once more put into full operation. A proviso, however, authorized the Gov- ernment, in consequence of treaties made with foreign powers, to make such and so many notable , exceptions that these ex- ceptions have almost destroyed the rule. In 1849 the act was definitely repealed by Lord John Russell, crowning the efforts of Peel and Oobden to establish free trade. ~ There can be no doubt that the naviga- tion act gave a great and lasting impulse to the British merchant marine. - Adam Smith, despite his horror and intolerance of all protective measures, ; made an exception in favor of the navi- gation act, which he regarded as a wise and patriotic law. It was in his eyes not only an act regulating commerce, but a measure of public safety. RECIPROCITY GRADUALLY APPLIED. Step by step the encircling ring of pro- tection was broken, but never with such rapidity that English shipping could suf- fer from the change of conditions. To each country in turn in which England desired freedom for her;ships she granted freedom in her home and colonial ports. Nothing was done out of consideration for her competitors. The result speaks for. itself. Great Britain to-day controls 56 per cent, of the carrying trade, owns half the floating property of the globe, unfurls her flag over one-quarter of its area, and rules nearly one-third of its population. Could this position have been achieved or maintained save by first excluding foreign-built vessels from her commerce, and by discriminating ~ duties, together with subsidies and mail pay on an enormous scale, and other forms of support? England, under this system of laws in full force for about one hundred and12 thirty years, laid the foundation for the present prosperous condition of her ship* ping and commercial supremacy. We are told that England has free trade in shipping and maritime reciprocity, and, as a result, controls one-half the carrying of the world, and therefore this policy is best for the United States. But the con- ditions are not the same. In the matter of shipping the United States is in one - sense now where England was when she enacted her navigation laws, and we are not as well off as when we adopted dis- criminating duties in 1794. If the United States had enjoyed for one hundred and thirty years the benefits of such naviga- tion laws and had followed them by discriminating duties, large subsidies, and mail pay, then our people might be willing to adopt free trade in shipping. We would then start in the struggle on equal footing. Great Britain adopted free trade on land before she adopted it on the sea, and the United States would do well not to adopt free trade in ship- ping until after it is tried on land. Extract from Nimmo’s report on foreign com- merce and the practical workings of maritime reciprocity (Executive Document No. 76, House of Representatives, Forty-first Con- gress, third session.) England clung to her own maritime code of Cromwell and Charles II until the year 1819, .re- fusing us all reciprocal relations of commerce beyond the direct trade between Great Britain and the United States or between the United States and her colonies. She held to her colonial trade with the tenacity of a death grip, declar- ing the entire commerce between the different ports of her empire to be a part of her coastwise ■trade the formation of our National Government in 1787. The celebrated “ colonial controversy ” continued for forty years. In 1788 England prohibited all intercourse in American vessels with her colonies, thus securing to her own ships the advantages of three profitable voyages in one, viz., from England to the United States, thence to the British West Indies, and thence home. From this policy she was finally com- pelled to recede on account of the retaliatory course pursued by the United States. It is not surprising that at this early period this contest should have excited profound national interest. The question of retaliation against England, or of submission to her imperious rule, agitated the country for many years. In 1818 an act was passed closing American ports against British vessels coming from ports which were closed to American vessels.. After several restrictive acts on the part of England, and retaliatory acts the part of the United States, England the United States relaxed its retaliatory meas- ures. During this whole controversy the United States, while resisting each act of encroach- ment upon her rights ns an independent nation, at all times extended to England the offer of a fair and true reciprocity. the ratc~ ______, ^____ ____ VJ.„ chapter 29, June 26, 1849) abolishing almost all of her former maritime laws. Under the au- thority conferred upon the President by the act of 1828, the Secretary of the Treasury promptly issued his order to collectors of customs inform- ing them that British vessels and their cargoes would thenceforth be admitted to our ports, from all parts of the world upon the same terms as to duties, imports, and charges as American vessels. THE INTRENCHED POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN. The advantages that help to perpetuate England’s maritime supremacy are : 1. Her enormous tonnage ; more than the combined tonnage of all other nations. Supported by— (a) The British Lloyd system of sur- veys and classifications, discriminating in favor of British built vessels. Con- suls can act as Lloyds agents every- where. . (b) Discriminations of Association of Marine Insurance Underwriters, conse- quent upon Lloyds classification of risks. (c) Mail subsidies amounting to about. $4,000,000 annually, on which Great Britain is content to suffer a seeming loss of about $2,500,000 annually. (d) Subventions to fast steamship lines as armed cruisers, about $250,000 annu- ally. (e) Ships manned more cheaply; less number sailors and low wages. (/) Ships supplied more cheaply. (g) Ships surer of cargoes, having mar- kets everywhere. (h) Ships, passenger and freight, enjoy prestige for safety. {%) Tax rate and insurance on ships very low. (i) Income from ships high in propor- tion to English rate of interest. (k) Ships’ .supplies taken from goods in bond, i. e., duty free. (l) Dock equipment for repairing fin- est in the world. (m) Less cost of repairs, low price of labor, and low rent of docks. 2. National pride and interest in all marine affairs. The executive practically with full power in. matters of subsidies and aid to shipping. 8. The possession of the “ beaten track ” of international commerce. 4. An enormous foreign trade, extend- ing around the world, v 5. A thoroughly established interna- tional credit and banking system* accom-IB inodating the debtor nations. It is said that the capital and surplus of interna- tional banking houses of London alone, • which aid British commerce throughout the world, amount to nearly $400,000,000, or five times the capital and surplus of the national banks of the city of New "York. 6. An unrivaled consular system. 7. A board of trade that is national in its character, with full executive power ; while the United States has not even a Department of Commerce. 8. A vast system of submarine and overland electric cables, which help to make England the commercial brain and center of the globe. 9. A round-the-world Empire, which, with its growing system of politico-com- mercial railways, canals, and steamship lines, under the patronage of the Imperial Treasury, have long since unified its colonial dominions and holds the world’s commerce in a British net of steam, steel, and electricity. 10. A navy which is a guaranty of safety in time of international complica- tions. ■ 11. England’s position as the great trade center to which all commercial highways lead. 12. The persistent and seemingly in- curable indifference of Americans toward even the maintenance of. the shipping we have, let alone increasing it. Eng- land’s shipping grows by reason of our apathy. To all these should be added— The wage earning power of the mer- chant marine of Great Britain, amount- ing to about $75,000,000 annually. The freight and passenger earning r power, estimated at about $500,000,000 annually. The consumption of coal, iron and steel for her ships. . ..... The profits from shipbuilding and ship repairing. BRITISH LLOYDS REGISTER ASSOCIATION. Lloyds Register has been known for the last, sixty or seventy years as one of the chief agencies used in building up shipping in England and breaking down that of other countries, notably that of the United States. While it is the busi- ness of this association to inspect, rate and classify British- and foreign ships, yet they do not insure hulls and cargoes. .The business of insurance, however, is conducted by its members individually, entirely outside of and separate from the corporation. Lloyds Register has agents in all the ports of the world, and they give preference in inspection, rating, and clas- sification to British ships. This enables British ships not only to be insured cheaper, but to get readier cargoes, while American vessels have to wait for cargoes which are charged higher insurance on account of the ships having a lower clas- sification. Through this system of in- specting, rating and insurance American sailing vessels have been driven out of many ports of the world, especially our own, both on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. There are instances, owing to these discriminations, where American vessels-have waited months for cargoes. The British Lloyds Register is one of the most important aids to British ship- ping. United States Consul Jones writes to the Department of State from Newcastle- on-Tyne, September 30, 1882, as follows!: The local marine office at London pays out amounted to £10,000,000 ($>50,000,000), and the premiums paid on marine insurance during the same year are stated at £10,000,000 ($50,000,000). Look whither we will, and the beneficial influ- ence of shipping is patent; and it, is a growing influence, already exceeding in capital invested the mines and iron works of the Kingdom com- bined, and only excelled in this regard by agri- culture and railways. The Commissioner of Navigation in his report for 1885 says : It was the great disparagement by Lloyds agents in the ports , of China and Japan that prejudiced shippers against the steamships of our Pacific Mail—the Peking' and Tokio—in 1874 and 1875. ‘ But Consul Jones proves even more forcibly this influence, he says again : Shipping creates a great demand for irpn and steel in their various forms and qualities, as well as for engines and boilers, chains and an- chors, sails and ropes, for every variety of hard- ware,' crockery, aiid glassware, and for up- holstery and carpets, beds and bedding, elec- tric appliances and telephones. “ Employment is afforded directly and indirectly to an army of men and women of every social grade and in- Parliament, to the hard-worked puddler at the furnace. fop 3te- employees, surveyors, savings-bank clerks, ^r"~A -------- ~derive their liveli- "dng. - ------------- -----l mercantile navy during 1880 numbered 190,380. United States Consul Morey, of Ceylon, writes as follows ; \14 To my knowledge, for a period of twelve have been .unemployed in foreign ports, or ac- cepted of freights too low to much more than pay expenses, while crank old foreign craft, just at the tail end of a high class and prone to damaging their cargoes, have loaded for the United States at high rates with cargo bought favor. Only members of Lloyds are allowed the bene- fits, protection, and information furnished daily by agents appointed for the purpose, and there is scarcely a port of consequence in the world where one is not stationed. “ British not statione< are allowed to serve as (these) agents “ for (British) navigation companies. ” consuls * ” also While England has at the head of her shipping a member of the cabinet, and the local marine office at London pays out 1600,000 annually in the way of sala- ries, the United States simply maintains a Bureau of Navigation at a cost of about $15,000 per annum. Against this in- trenched postion and immense advan- tages which British shipping enjoys, and under these unequal conditions, nothing short of discriminating duties will avail. CHARACTER OF PROTECTION TO SHIPPING BY EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. According to the report of the Com- missioner of Navigation in 1894, the forms of aid adopted by European coun- tries to build up shipping and shipbuild- ing are as follows : First, direct bounties for the construction of vessels, engines, and boilers in domestic yards, as is the present practice of France, Italy, and Austria. Second, indirect bounties for the construction of vessels in domestic yards in the form of a Government bounty for every mile navigated by a vessel so built, or in the form of large mail payments to vessels "so built. France, Italy, and Austria adopt this course also, and Germany to a limited extent. , . Third, navigation bounties for every mile : traversed by a vessel under- the national flag, regardless of its place of build. France held this policy from 1881 to 1892, and it has just been adopted by Austria. , Fourth, mail compensation, {a) operating as subsidy in France, Italy, and Austria, though designed in part for political and commercial purposes; (6) ordinary payments for services rendered with no excess, except so far as re- quired to insure regularity of communication or for political or commercial purposes; (c) or- dinary payments solely for commercial pur- poses. Fifth, payments to selected merchant steam- ships as reserved cruisers or transports. Showing that all these countries pro- tect shipping in some form or other un- der treaties providing for maritime reci- procity, while the United States does practically nothing, DISCRIMINATING DUTIES. The objections made to restoring the policy of discriminating duties are : (a) Treaties with foreign countries providing for maritime reciprocity Stand in the way. (b) Such "a policy if established would provoke retaliation on the part of Great Britain and other ship owning countries. (c) It is antiquated, narrow, illiberal, and has long since been discarded by the United States and European countries. (d) The conditions are not the same now as when it was in force in the early history of the Government. The policy of discriminating duties is only a form of protection; indeed, protec- tion is based on discrimination. We protect our manufacturing industries by discriminating in their favor and against foreign manufactured products. If the United States had sixty years ago aban- doned the policy of protection and. it should be proposed now to revive the law and restore duties by imposing a tax of 50 per cent, on the value of one-half the goods, wares, and merchandise imported from foreign countries, the same or stronger arguments would be made in oppostion to such a bill that are now made against restoring discriminating duties in favor of American shipping. Such a proposition would be set down a3 nar- row, illiberal and antiquated. It would be said at once that we would have in- stant retaliation from the nations of Europe which we could not stand. But the nations of Europe do not retaliate now. Yet the people of the United States know and believe after one hundred years of trial that protection and levyiug duties on foreign products has been in many ways of incalculable benefit to the country. But, Mr. President, the pro- tection that I ask for American shipping and that comes from discriminating duties is not the kind that costs individ- uals or the Government anything. FEATURES OF THE BILL. The bill simply imposes an ad valorem duty of 10 per cent, in addition to exist- ing duties, or in case of no duty, a duty ’ of 10 per cent, on all goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States in foreign vessels. If these same products should be imported in Ameri- can ships, then there is no additional duty, and 'if free they would still re- main free if brought in American ships. The bill does not prohibit oxexclude foreign vessels from carrying our foreign commerce, as the naviga- tion laws of Great Britain did once. The bill leaves to the importer the choice of bringing his goods in foreign ships and paying an additional duty of 10 per cent, on their value for this privi- lege, or of bringing them in American ships and paying no additional duty. Great Britain kept just such a law in force for nearly two hundred years, not repealing it until 1849. The bill grants protection enjoyed by industries on land and shipping in the coastwise trade to American interests on the high seas.. Whatever limitation or restric- tion is imposed by the policy of discrimi- nating duties is in the direction of better protection to home manufacturers and home industries and in favor of shipping and building American ships—two good -results. The bill, however, is not in- tended in any sense to raise revenue ; its sole purpose is to build up American shipping. It is sugggested that instead of increas- ing the duty 10 per cent, it should be re- duced 10 per cent, on goods imported in American ships. This is a form of pro- tection and would be better than con- tinued neglect. But it is submitted that if duties on goods imported in American ships should be reduced 10 per cent., then the revenues would be reduced in the same proportion, and in order to cut down we must somewhere increase the duties, above those necessary to pay; the expenses of the Government. Then again, under this proposition, what is to be done with products admitted free ? On these, there being no duty, no reduction is possible, and these goods could be imported in for- eign vessels just as in vessels of the United States in the future as in the past. BILL NOT PERFECT. It is not claimed that the bill under consideration is perfect or will bring, all needed relief. It will have to be supple- mented by further legislation. It is claimed, however, in its behalf that the principle has been tried for nearly forty years and produced the most beneficial results, and to restore discriminating duties now would be a start in the right . direction. It is possible in some matters of detail the bill before the Senate.will need amendment. Any amendment that will help the bill will be welcome. . All I contend for is the principle of discrim- mating duties, believing that once adopted we will see clearly our way. to restore American carrying. The bill is plain, simple, direct, and easily understood. It strikes out boldly to * render help to an industry that is languishing and without help must perish. When the makers of the Govern- ment, immediately after the adoption of . the Constitution, desired to encourage and build up shipping, they adopted the policy set forth in this bill. * They passed other acts in aid of shipping, all of them short, direct, and to the point, and this was all that was done. They did not formulate and bring into Congress a com- plicated system of navigation laws, full of technicalities and full of details, drafted to meet every requirement and every ob- jection that could be raised. They saw what was needed, and that unless some- thing should be done American shipping on the high seas would disappear and pro- vided what* they conceived to be the proper remedy. All the acts on the sub- ject were passed in five years, and would not cover a page in our Revised Statutes. They were parts of laws on different sub- jects, mainly the tariff, and, like the bill under consideration, consisted only of, a few lines. The Government was then in its in- fancy, in debt and without credit, with ' a population of only 3,000,000, the people poor, and without money. We now have 70,000,000 of population and unsurpassed credit. In the face of all the difficulties that met the makers of the Government, they proceeded without hesitation, with- out doubt/ without fear of opposition or of retaliation, to take care of all the inter- ests of the new Government on sea as well as on land. They succeeded beyond their expectations, and the result in the growth of our industries on sea and land was the most remarkable in history. Just the same determination and same purpose is required now. The United States is able to enforce any policy it may adopt. . IMPORTANT BRITISH TESTIMONY. The great free trader, Adam Smith, advocated prohibition and discrimination in favor of British shipping. In his Wealth of Nations he says : There seems, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encourage- ment of domestic industry.. The first is whenof navigation, therefore, very properly en- deavors to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in some cases, by absolute prohibitions, and in others by heavy burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries. A British historian in speaking of the provision in the navigation law of Great Britain whi ch prohibited goods being im- ported into England except in vessels be- longing to British owners and bnilt by British builders says : The result of that act far transcended the wildest dream of Lombard and Venetian avarice or the grandest schemes of Spanish and Por- tuguese conquest. It not only secured to the people who enacted it the greatest share of the world’s carrying trade, but the trade also knew its master and followed with becoming servility. rMr. McGregor, secretary to the British board of trade and author of McGregor’s Statistics, in discussing the policy of discriminating duties and its effect on the shipping of other nations when in force, says : In the American navigation laws counter- vailing duties were imposed upon all foreign vessels trading to the United States, of half a dollar a ton duty beyond what should at any time be paid by American ships; and further, that goods imported in foreign vessels should pay a duty of 10 per cent, over and above what Was payable on the same description of goods when imported in American vessels. These countervailing duties were directed against the navigation of Great Britain, and grounded on the. same principles as the British navigation laws. Various measures to counteract the American system were devised by the British Government and they failed upon the principles of our continuing to maintain in full force the navigation laws. To all intelligent men it be- came evident that we had engaged in an un- equal struggle, and that the real effect of our policy was to give a bounty on the importation of the manufactured goods of other countries • into the United States, to the gradual exclusion both of our manufactures and ships from the ports of America. This is the testimony of an eminent British authority on the subject of dis- 7 criminating duties and their beneficial effects on American shipping and should carry conviction to all Americans enter- taining any doubt on the subject. WHAT MUST BE DONE FOB SHIPPING. American carrying must be built up under the operation of law, a law that will discriminate in favor of American ships in carrying our foreign trade, es- pecially our imports. If we had aban- doned seventy years ago the policy of ex- cluding foreign built vessels from our coastwise trade, that trade to-day would be largely in the hands of foreign ship- owners and in a condition as deplorable as our ocean carrying. Had we contin- 16 ued the policy of protection to our carry- ing, shipping in our foreign trade to-day would be in as prosperous condition as our manufacturing interests. The policy of discriminating duties is not an experi- ment, it is not untried ; on the contrary, it was on trial for a long period under the most unfavorable conditions and pro- duced the best results. It was just as hard or harder to compete with Great Britain and win from her 90 per cent, of the carrying of our foreign commerce in the early history of the Gov- ernment as it would be now. The policy of discriminating duties is the policy of protection to American industries on the seas. It is part of the great Amer- ican policy which we have adhered to for more than one hundred years, and experience has shown that we must always have an American policy for American industries on sea as well as on land. The policy of excluding all foreign ves- sels from our coast, lake, and river com- merce has produced wonderful results. It has built up this branch of our ship- ping and shipbuilding until the Carrying power of vessels engaged in this com- merce represents 9,800,000 tons. Experience teaches that protection is the wisest, and best policy to encourage and build up an industry not estab- lished in competition with one already established. If the United States had reached its true .position on the seas and controlled its share of the carrying trade of the world, had a merchant ma- rine and shipyards making all the con- ditions in favor of shipping the same as those of other nations, then possibly dis- criminating duties would not be needed. RESULTS THAT WOULD FOLLOW THE RES TORATION OF DISCRIMINATING DUTIES. It is believed that the adoption of discriminating duties, with such sup- plemental legislation that might be found necessary in theJight of experience, the results would be as beneficial as in the early history of the Government and felt at once. First. It would give us imme- diately a large share in carrying our for- eign commerce, all of our imports and part of our exports, and a share in carry- ing the commerce of countries not own- ing ships. Second. It would increase shipbuilding ; new shipyards would spring up on all our coasts, causing the expenditure of hundreds of millions of capital. Third. Shipbuilding would jstim-ulate other industries of all kinds;; it would give employment to thousands of skilled and other workmen. Fourth. It would save to the people of the United States annually nearly 1100,000,000 now paid to foreign shipowners for carrying our imports, with the chance in a few years of saving another hundred millions by the increase of shipping and the carry- ing of a large part of the world’s com- merce in American bottoms. Fifth. It would not only build up shipping in the foreign trade, but it would be the means of extending our trade in the foreign markets of the world. THE PEOPLE HAVE DECLARED FOR DIS- CRIMINATING DUTIES, The policy of ^discriminating duties as the best means of restoring shipping is constantly gaining in favor with the peo- ple. It was indorsed in the platforms of fourteen State, conventions held last year and in the platform of the Sfc. Louis Re- publican national convention in the fol- lowing words : We favor restoring tlie early American policy of discriminating duties for the upbuilding of our merchant marine and the protection of our shipping in the foreign carrying trade, so that American ships—the product of American labor employed in American shipyards, sailing under the Stars and Stripes, and manned, officered, and owned by Americans—may regain the car- rying of our foreign commerce. This indorsement was followed by the hearty approval of the candidate of that convention in his letter of acceptance, . dated August 27, 1896, an extract from which is as follows : The declaration of the Republican platform in favor of the upbuilding of our merchant marine has my hearty approval. The policy of discrim- - mating duties in favor of our shipping, which prevailed in the early years of our history, should be again promptly adopted by Congress and vigorously supported until our prestige and supremacy on the seas is fully attained. We should no longer contribute directly or indirectly to the maintenance of the colossal marine of foreign countries, but provide an ' efficient and complete marine of our own. . The candidate of the St. Louis conven- tion, now the honored Executive of the i'_ great Republic, was triumphantly elect- ed on the principle of protection to our interests on land and sea. He believes in both, and that American vessels flying the American flag should occupy and use the seas and oceans of the world in com- ; mon with other nations, and such pro- . tection should be granted shipping as will allow them to do so. In this position he is sustained by a majority of his country- men. Reference to party action in sup- port of this bill is made to show that discriminating duties are attracting wide attention, and not that it is or should be a party question. The results that would follow its passage are so far reaching that it should be lifted above party feeling. I sincerely hope, Mr. President, that it will not be made a party question, but be supported by all parties. The foreign shipping interest opposing this bill can afford to buy every steam- ship line belonging to the United' States engaged in our foreign carrying trade rather than see this bill become a law. RETALIATION. One of the reasons urged against the passage of the bill under consideration is that Great Britain and other shipowning countries will retaliate. But just how or in what way the opponents of the bill do not clearly set forth. The damage to our shipping that might follow retalia- tion is imaginary. Under the operation of maritime reciprocity and neglect, we have scarcely any shipping left in our foreign trade. It would be far better to carry in American ships our imports or 50 per cent, of our foreign commerce, which we would do under discriminat- ing duties, with retaliation against us, than to carry only 11 per cent., as we do now, with no retaliation. Washington said : There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to na- tion. Great Britain will always do at the time whatever her statesmen may deem to be in her interest. If they should think retaliation the best weapon with which to oppose discriminating duties, they would adopt it and enforce it vigor- ously. But if Great Britain and other countries should adopt retaliation, how would that affect American carrying ? It would take from American ships the slight part they now have in carrying exports from the United States, which is insignificant. Taking this small busi- ness from American ships by way of re- taliation for adopting the policy of dis- criminating duties, could not prevent American ships from carrying nearly a thousand millions of imports from for- eign countries, making their gross earn- ings a hundred millions per annum ; whereas their earnings now amount only to about $20,000,000 per annum from car- rying both our exports aud imports.18 But should European countries adopt retaliation, they must do it in a way not to increase the cost of our farm products to their people. Two-thirds of all our exports to Great" Britain are food prod- ucts, and she cannot afford to increase the price of these products to her peo- ple. It is doubtful whether England would retaliate ; to do so would be to adopt protection and reverse her free- trade policy. Why do not England and other European countries retaliate _ against our ^levying duties of from 40 to 50 per cent, on their manufactured prod- ucts which we import ? Simply because it is not to their interest to retaliate ; and for the same reason it will not be to their interest to retaliate against discrim- inating duties in favor of American car- rying. The best answer, however, to this fear of retaliation is our experience in the early history of the Government, under discriminating duties at a time when the Government was just begin- ning its national life, our population small, and our resources undeveloped. During the entire period the United States maintained discriminating duties England adhered to the same policy. Not only did she cling tenaciously to the policy of discriminating duties, but she retaliated in every way she could against American carrying under discriminating duties. But all to no purpose. In the face of her retaliation and opposition American carrying increased, and this increase was maintained until 1828, when we aban- doned discriminating duties for maritime reciprocity. - Shipowning nations will do everything in their power short of war to oppose the passage of this bill or any other measure that will in- crease American shipping. Nearly all nations have adopted protection to ship- ping in some form or other. In doing so there has been no retaliation.. Why should any nation retaliate against the United States for adopting the form of protection that may best suit its pur- poses ? The nations which now protect shipping have chosen their way of doing so. Why should not the United States choose its way of protecting shipping in the manner proposed in the bill under discussion ?• We wpuld simply exercise our rights just as other nations exercise theirs in choosing the forms of protection they prefer. If under discriminating duties in the early history of the Republic our com- merce increased so rapidly in the face of opposition and retaliation on the part of England, why should there be any appre- hension or fear, now that we. are strong, have 70,000,000 of population, and lead the world in almost all branches of in- dustry save shipping? Then, again, if retaliation should be adopted by Great Britain, it would likely become general* in which event England, having the larg- est part of the carrying of the world’s commerce, would have most to lose. The following table by Mulhall shows how the carrying power of the world is distributed : Carrying Flag. power, tons. Ratio. British .................. 27,720,000 56.6 Scandinavian................... 4,240,000 8.8 German....................... 3,870,000 8.0 French....................... 2,410,000 4.9 Spanish........................ 2,020,000 4.2 United States................. 1,680,000 3.4 Italian...................... 1,410,000 2.8 Russian....'................... 1,280,000 2.4 Various...................... 4,280,000 8.9 Total..................... 48,840,000 100 It will be seen from this that England has more carrying power than all other nations of the world combined. Her interest on the high seas iso greatest, and she will hesitate long before put- ting it in peril by retaliation or other- wise. The United States has so little shipping in the foreign trade that in case of retaliation she will have little to lose but much, to gain by discriminating duties. ' r The London Times in a recent article, after reviewing the discussions in the United States on the subject of reviving American shipping for fifty years, con- cludes with the following : ■While, therefore, it would be a rash thing to assert that the American merchant navy will never seriously compete with the British ma- rine, it is safe enough to assume that the Union Jack is not likely to have anything to fear from the Stars and Stripes for a long time to come. COMMERCIAL TREATIES WITH OTHER COUN- TRIES. It is urged in opposition to the passage of the bill under consideration that-it would be a violation of certain commer- cial treaties entered into with Great Brit- ain and other nations, and that these treaties should not be violated with im- punity. When the United States wishes to restore its shipping and become inde- pendent on sea as on land, a treaty with England, covered with the dust of nearly a century, is brought forth, and we are solemnly told its sacred provisionslft must not be violated, and we must re- main bound hand and foot, powerless to help ourselves, though what is proposed is right and proper and would benefit our interests. No treaty should stand in the way of our having what belongs to us as a matter oi right and having our fair share of the carrying trade of the world. _ Of course, no treaty should be violated as long as it is in force, but this bill ex- pressly proposes in terms to abrogate all treaties or parts of treaties in conflict with the provisions of the bill. Among the ways a treaty may be terminated or abrogated one is by act of Congress. 'This was in contemplation of the con- tracting powers when these treaties were entered into and ratified. The bill under consideration proposes to abrogate only parts of the treaties. But the question arises, How about the other provisions ? Will they remain in ; force or not ? Is the abrogation by one of the contracting powers of a clause, or a part of a treaty, without the consent of the other an abrogation of the whole treaty? It is not necessary to discuss this question, because if the act abro- gates all of these treaties, it would be far better for theTJnited States than contin- , uing the policy of maritime reciprocity. Under these treaties providing mari- time reciprocity American shipping on the high seas has declined. The second articlo of the treaty with Great Britain, ratified December 22,1815, provides : The same duties shall he paid on the importa- tion into the United States of any articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of His Britan- nia Moioc-ftr’a in Europe, whether a vessels of the vessels; and the ritories in Europe of any article the growtJ produce, or manufacture of the United State whether such importation shall he in British vessels or in vessels of the United States. The discriminating duties on imports were wholly abandoned by Great Britain in 1849, ' and not until then, when she took advantage of our act of 1828. The terms of the same article of the treaty^of 1815 as to discriminating ton- page duties read as follows : No higher or other duties or charges shall he Imposed in any of the ports of the United States on. British vessels than those payable An the in Europe on. vessels-of. the United States than shall he payable in the same ports by British Vessels. - • : These are the hurtful provisions of this treaty, and are substantially the same in all the treaties with other countries. The treaties are fully set forth in the volume of Treaties and Conventions Be- tween the United States and Other-Pow- ers, 1776 to 1887, and are with the coun- tries following, with important article in each one cited : Argentina. Art. V, Apr. 19,1855, page 9. Austria-Hungary. Art. II, Feb. fO, 1831, page 1. Belgium. Arts. II, III, June 29,1875, page 76. Bolivia. Art. IY, Jan. 8,1863, page 91. Brazil. Art. IY, Mar. 18,1829, page 106. China. Art. Ill, Oct. 5,1881, page 184. Costa Rica. 23. Denmark. , Dominican Republic, page 246. Ecuador. Art. IV, Sept. 23,1842,-page 256. - France. Art. V, Feb. 12,1823, page 344. Great Britain. Art. II, Dec. 22, 1815, page 410. Greece. Art. II, Aug. 30,1838, page 502. Guatemala. Art. IY, July 28,1852, page 509. Germany (Hanover). Art. I, Apr. 24, 1847, page 523. Germany (Hanseatic League). Art. I, June 2, 1828, page 533. ' Germany (Mecklenburg). Art. I, Aug. 2,1848, page 654. Germany (Prussia). Art. II, Mar. 14, 1829, page 917. Haiti. Arts. X and XI, July 6,1865. Hawaii. Italy. Art. V, Nov. 23, .1871, page uuw. Korea. Art. V, June 4,1883, page 218. Liberia. Art. Ill, Mar. 18,1863, page 0o^. Madagascar. Art. IV, Mar. 13,1883, page 644. Mexico. Art. Y, Apr. 5,1832, page 665. New Grenada. Art. IY, June 12,1848, page 196. Netherlands. Art. Ill, Feb. 26,1853, page 764. Nicaragua. Art. Y, Aug. 13, 1868, page 780. Paraguay. Art. Y, Mar. 12,1860, page 831. ‘ Peru. Art. IY, July 27,1874, page 877. , Portugal. Art. II, Apr. 24,1841, page 82. Prussia.' Art. II, May 11,1833, page 39. Russia. ,Art. II, May 11,1833, page 933. Salvador. Art. IY, Mar. 13, 1874, page 958. Spain (Cuba and Puerto Rico). Art. I, Oct. 27, >86, page 1203. - Sweden and Norway. Art. II, Jan. 19, 1828, page 1059. Turkey. Art. VIII, July 2,1862, page 803. Venezuela. Art. VI, Sept. 25,1861, page 1132. Seven of these treaties were made be- fore 1830. Six in the decade ending in 1840. Six were adopted in the ten-year- period ending 1850. Four were made, previous to our - civil war/ and fifteen have been made since 1860. r1 ^ In entering into the treaties providing for maritime reciprocity the United States abandoned discriminating duties, which was the greatest protection Ameri- can shipping ever enjoyed, and under, which it prospered as it never has since. The true' intent and -meaning of these treaties was that as between the contract- ing .powers ocean carrying should be freeso iind reciprocal and in effect put upon an equal footing. The United States has observed the spirit of these treaties, and ‘has rendered but little or no aid to take the place of the protection enjoyed under discriminating duties. Other nations, especially Great Britain, Prance, Germany, and Italy, have not observed the spirit of the treaties, but increased their subsidies and mail pay to ships and adopted other forms of aid to build up and protect their shipping. These treaties are and have been a detri- ment to the United States, and have only served foreign powers. They take from us as a nation and a people and give noth- ing in return. They are one-sided in their operations against American inter- ests, and should be abrogated. All of them contain a provision that they may be abrogated by giving one year’s notice. If this bill becomes a law, it would be the duty of the President to give notice of the abrogation of that part of the treaty in conflict with the act. With this in view, and for other reasons, the act is to take effect fifteen months after its approval. The treaties made prior to 1828 contain provisions by which they lapse by time unless renewed. COST OF OCEAN FREIGHT TO AMERICANS TO CARRY THEIR FOREIGN COMMERCE. The cost of ocean freight is 15 per cent, of the value of exports and 10 per cent, of the value of imports, or an average of 12% Per cent, of the value of exports and imports for carrying the same.- The value of our exports and imports is about seventeen hundred millions of dollars per annum. The cost of carrying these products is two hundred millions per annum, the amount annually paid by Americans for carrying what they pro- duce and sell and what they buy. To this must be added about thirty millions for carrying passengers, making in all two hundred and thirty millions. Of this freight and passenger business, American shipowners carry about 10 per cent., or nearly two hundred millions, and therefore receive one-tenth of the cost of the ocean freight, which would be nearly 120,000,000, and foreigners the balance, or two hundred millions. If by any policy this $200,000,000 per annum, or the half of it, could be paid to . Ameri- can instead of foreign shipowners, thereby keeping this immense sum of money at home, what a change it would make in the balance of trade in our favor, and what a stimulus it would be to shipbuild- ing and other branches of industry. The United States paid $50,000,000 more in 1896 to foreign steamship companies for carrying our imports and exports than the amount of taxes collected from inter- : nal revenue sources, and $20,000,000 more than was collected in duties in 1892 under the McKinley tariff. In other words, foreign steamship companies tax our people for carrying what they buy and sell more than they are taxed under the internal revenue laws or more than they were taxed under the McKinley tariff. By reason of tariff agitation political parties gain and lose control of the Gov- ernment. At almost every meeting of a new Congress business is thrown into confusion because of possible changes in the tariff, whether duties should bex higher or lower in particular cases ; but there is no contest and no excitement in Congress about restoring our shipping and paying annually to foreign corpora- tions for carrying our exports and im- ports more than is involved in the whole tariff. The tariff should be taken out of politics, and the restoration of our ship- ping should never be made a question nor enter into politics. In one sense the two hundred millions we pay to foreign shipowners is a loss to our people. It is unlike almost any other expenditure. Substantially we get noth- ' ing in return for it ; nothing that adds to the wealth of the country. When we buy goods and products from other na- tions and pay gold for the same, we get the goods in return, and they constitute part of the wealth of the nation. But when we pay out two hundred millions annually for ocean freight on goods we , buy and sell, when we could keep it at home by paying it; to American shipown- ers, we simply deplete the resources of the country and make the people poorer. One Of the causes of the depression in business is due to the drain of two huh- dred millions of gold annually paid by the people of the United States to for*, eign steamship companies for ocean; freights.- No nation, however rich, can stand this great drain for a long time. In discussing this subject recently Mr.". ' Charles H. Cramp, of Cramp & Sons, of Philadelphia, said : For this drain there is no recompense. It is sheer loss. It is the principal cause of our ex isting financial condition. ' ; \ So long as this drain continues, no tariff and no monetary policy can restore the national prosperity.31 Until we make some provision to keep at home soine part at least of the three hundred and odd millions annually sacked out of this country by foreign shipowners and shipbuild- ers, no other legislation can bring good times -back again. It is a constant stream of gold always flowing out. The foreign shipowner who carries our over- sea commerce, makes us pay the freight both ways. Fo: iric* Fo: price plus or our exports we get the foreign maket price less the freight. 'T7'"" —* ----*4-" we pay the foreign market rice less the freig] For our imports rice plus the freig The result of all this is that while this country has never known such industrial stagnation and such financial distress, England has never known such industrial activity and financial prosperity~as now. Ex United States Commissioner ^ of Navigation Capt. W. W. Bates, in his book, American Marine, published in 1892, on Page 25 says : sign this thirty years past, has been pai<---- ships for ocean transportation. To stop drain nothing effective has been done, the po- litical mind seeming to be fully occupied with other questions of local or secondary, impor- tance. . Thirty years is but a span in the life of a nation ; yet we have paid, in this? short period, nearly as much as the cost of our civil war to foreign shipowners for carry- ing our exports and imports. . By,restoring the policy of protection and discriminating duties adopted in the early history of the Government, and in force for forty years, a large part of this vast sum could be saved to our people. a policy that would allowits own people ; to have the business and enjoy the profits resulting from carrying its foreign com- merce, and added to this, in emergencies or in case of war be independent and not run the risk of having its commerce de- stroyed. The United States only strength- ens the hands of its rivals in shipping and commerce by giving them the carry- ing of what our people buy and sell. COST OF OUR CONSULAR SERVICE. The consular service costs annually about |400,000. It Was established and is still maintained for the extension of our trade in the various ports and districts where established. It will be found that a large part of this sum is yearly expended in salaries to consuls at ports where American vessels are rarely seen. We send consuls to Glasgow, Hull, Cardiff, Manchester, Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Ports- mouth, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Christi- ania, Berjen, Palermo, Venice, Athens, Constantinople, Bayonne, Genoa, Naples, Rotterdam, Copenhagen, and all ports on the Baltic and Black seas, and during the year 1895 not an American vessel touched at any of these great ports. If theAmeri- can people are to allow shipping to con- tinue to decline, and finally disappear from, the high seas, why maintain a for- eign consular service at"so, great an ex- pense ? WE IMPROVE OUR HARBORS FOR THE BEN- EFIT OF FOREIGN" SHIPPING. BUSINESS PRINCIPLES ARE THE SAME EVERYWHERE, AND APPLY WITH EQUAL -FORCE TO THE GOVERNMENT^ AND TO IN- DIVIDUALS. It would be unwise and unsafe for a merchant doing a large business to in- trust to his rivals and competitors the hauling and delivery of the goods he might buy and sell. Corporations or individuals .doing a business of buying and selling seventeen hundred million dollars of products per annum.would never allow rivals or com- petitors to control the transportation of these products. The parties doing the business would not be willing to lose the profits to be made on the transportation, and beyond this they would not be will- ing to put their business under the. con- trol of rivals, for. fear it might happen J that: they might not be able or would refuse to do the transportation. So it is with the Government. It should adopt The United States appropriates an- nually millions of dollars to improve its harbors/largely for the benefit of foreign shipowners. Foreign steamship compa- nies carry nearly all of our foreign com- merce and own or control most of the valuable water fronts in our ports. Some of the British steamship lines pay as much as $100,000 a year rent for dock privileges in New York. In looking over miles of docks in the harbor of New York only foreign flags flying from the masts of foreign ships are seen, while the American flag is rarely seen and for the most part floats over ferryboats, river, and coastwise vessels. SUBSIDIES. For more than thirty years there has been constant discussion as to the condi- tion of American shipping, the necessity of restoring it, and suggestions as to the best remedies to this end. Committees of the House and Senate have been ap-22 pointed under resolutions to investigate and report, and Congress, in obedience to these reports, has passed some acts to aid shipping, but notwithstanding all that has been said and done, shipping has con- stantly declined. The plan or remedy for restoring ship- ping by subsidies and mail pay has been strongly advocated. If this form of aid had been adopted when discriminating duties were abandoned seventy years ago, or even thirty years ago, and we had kept pace with Great Britain in all other forms of support and encouragement to shipping,, we might depend upon sub- sidies and mail pay as a remedy now. A member of the British Parliament, Hon. J. Henniker Heaton, said in 1894, in the North American Review : As a consequence of refusing $5,000,000 a year in subsidies during thirty years to native ship- owners, or $150,000,000, the United States had to . pay in the same period no less than $3,000,000,- 000 for freights, while their mercantile marine dwindled into insignificance. With all the advantages, commercial and maritime, which Great Britain enjoys, we can never by equal or even greater subsidies regain our lost shipping. Great Britain has fifty years the advantage of the United States in the growth and de- velopment of shipping. She is established and firmly intrenched, and in possession of 56 per cent, of the world's carrying trade, and this percentage is increasing ; her merchants and bankers are estab- lished in all the important ports of the world ; she has 15,000 vessels afloat, manned by more than 200,000 seamen ; is rich in accumulated capital, and en- joys low rates of interest. These' are advantages that only come by time ; they cannot be bought with money. Enjoying all these advantages, Great Britain in any struggle for com- mercial supremacy or to hold her ship- ping would naturally appropriate two dollars for every one the United States might appropriate in the way of subsidy. 'From 1848 to 1891, a period of forty-four years, England spent in the way of subsidies and mail pay |8 for every $1 the United States spent, and for every |2.T0 we paid American ships for carry- ing our mails we paid $lto foreign ships. This of itself would defeat us ; but if she only appropriated an equal amount, we could not afford to compete with her for the carrying of the world’s commerce or take from her any part she now carries of our foreign commerce. To cope with Great Britain on the high seas by subsi- dies the United States should be put on equal footing. Any reasonable amount of subsidies and mail pay to owners of American ships will not put American shipping on an equal footing with that of Great Britain. If we had abandoned protection to manufactures for seventy years, we could not hope to build them up to what they are now by any system of bounties or money aid jn the face of competition from Europe under free trade. A condition of prostration in any industry may come about that any amount of money in the way of aid cannot cure. When this point is reached, law must intervene to overcome unequal- conditions. England goes so far in the way of aid- ing some steamship companies as to guarantee out of her treasury dividends on their stock. The people of the United States will never agree to guarantee divi- dends on American steamship companies’ stock. In 1894 the loss to Great Britain in mail subsidies was 12,250,000 over and above the receipts for carrying the mails. It is estimated that her subsidies, mail pay, and other aids amount annually from $3,500,000 to $4,000,000, which in twenty years would amount to $70,000,- 000. Another objection to aid by subsi- dies is, it cannot be general,, and discrimi- nates in favor of the lines receiving it and against those that do not. Aid should be general and extend equally and alike to all kinds of, shipping, both steam and sail. Discriminating duties would help all shipping alike. The founders of the Government did not attempt to subsidize shipping. They did not favor this policy, or, if so, they did not have the money to carry it opt. Practically, we are in the same position. We cannot subsidize shipping on a scale that will be effective and'commensurate with its needs, because the people will , not consent to appropriating the public „ money for this purpose. To-aid and sub- sidize shipping to the extent that would be necessary in face of the opposition, of Great Britain and other shipowning countries would require hundreds of millions of dollars to be appropriated from the Treasury.. _ . The American people will not submit., to this. They will not consent to build- ing up private and corporate industries^ by taking money out of the Treasury ;1 but a policy that will keep money in the i country they will unquestionably sustain; r23 SUBSIDIES AND PAYMENTS EOR THE OCEAN MAIL SERVICE OE GREAT BRITAIN AND THE ' states EROM 1848 TO 1891. Great Britain. Subsidy to v British Year. steamers. 1848................................. $3,250,U00 .1849 ................................... 3,180,000 1850 ................................... 5,313,985 1851.. ................................. 5,330,000 1852 ................................... 5,510,635 1853 ................................. 5,805,400 • 1854.................................. 5,950,559 ‘ 1855.................................... 5,741,633 1856.................................... 5,713,560 10-857.....................................5,133,485 1858 ................................ 4,679,415 1859 ................................... 4,740,179 1860 ................................ 4,349,760 1861 ................................... 4,703,285 1862 ................................... 4,105,353 1863.. .............................. 4,188,275 - 1864 ................................... 4,503,050 1865 ................................. 3,981,995 - 1866.................................. 4,227,018 1867................................... 4,079,966 , 1868 ............................... 4,047,580* 1869 ............................... 5,481,690 1870 ................................... 6,107,761 - 1871.....................;........... 6,070,741 1872................................. 5,693,500 1873.. ............................... 5,665,296 1874.. ............................... 5,697,346 1875 ................................. 4,860,000 1876 .................................. 4,420,261 1877.. ................................. 3,976,580 1878.. .............................. 3,914,990 N 1879 ................................... 3,768,230 1880 .................:.............. 3,873,136 1881 ................................... 3,601,350 1882.................................... 3,538,835 . 1883.. ......................„....... 3,608,800 1884.................................... 3,608,355 1885.. ................................. 3,642,065 1886 .............................:. 3,662,805 1887 ................................... 3,625,915 1888 ................................. 3,490,864 -1889.................................. 3,184,425 1890 ........................'....... *3,500,000 1891 ................................ *3,500,000 -United States.- Subsidy and mail payments. To Ameri- To for- can eign steamers, steamers. $100,500 .......... 235,086 ........ 619,924 ........ 1,465,818 ........ 1,655,241 ........ 1,880,273 ........ 1,903,286 ........ 1,936,715 ........ 1,886,766 ........ 1,589,153 1,177,303 1,079,230 707,245 570,953 80,686 79,397 64,356 66,572 245,605 411,065 625,239 -.757,964 791,389 699,661 805,788 815,400 • 750,296 740,361 580,063 283,835 40,152 41,251 38,780 42,552 40,645 48,077 53,170 49,048 43,319 76,727 86,890 109,828 120,170 147,561 $33,758 125,350 147.085 235.932 293.932 336,677 376.085 408.856 468,324 456,138 390,907 343,726 315,944 275,364 221,103 228,757' 238,098 236,283 173,547 162,061 159,828 158,775 161,029 197,515 239.856 268,281 279,051 282,855 286,072 335,946 376,528 505,573 420,507 443,204 Total amount paid. $100,500 235,086 619,924 1,465,818 1,655,241 1,883,273 1,903,286 1,936,715 1,886,766 1,589,153 1,211,061 1,204,570 854,330 806,885 374,618 416,074 440,441 475,428. 713,929 867,203 1,016,146 1,101,690 1,115,333 975,025 1,026,891 1,044,157 988,394 976,644 756,610 448,896 200,026 199,809 240,067 280,501 316,358 332,321 331,903 329,391 412,673 463,418 515,401 540,677 590,765 ^-Percentage—, paid. To To Ameri- for- ean eign steam- steam- ers. ers. 100.0 ...... 100.0 ........ 100.0 ....... 100.0 ....... 100.0 ....... 100.0 ....... 100.0 ....... 100.0 ....... 100.0 ........ 100.0 ........ 97.2 . ~ 2.8 89.5 10.5 -82.7 17.3 70.7 29.3 21.6 • 78.4 19.1 8L.9 14.6 85.4 14.0 86.0 34.4 65.6 47.4 52.6 61.5 38.5 68.8 31.2 70.9 29.1 71.7 28.3 78.4 21.6 78.1 21.9 75.9 24.1 75.8 - 24.2 76.9 23.1 63.8 36.2 20.1 79.9 20.6 79.4 19.4 81.6 17.5 82.5 14.4 85.6 15.2 84.8 16.0 84.0 14.8 85.2 13.1 86.9 18.5 81.5 18.7 '' 81.3 21.3 ' 78.7 ■■22.2 77,8 24.9 75.1 Approximate totals. . $197,027,789 $25,546,330 $9,482,947 $35,037,277 *43.2 *5678. . * Average. The table shows i First. Great Britain about doubled her subsidies on the establishment of Ameri- can subsidized lines. -When the anti- subsidy party in Congress gained the majority and repealed subsidies, Great Britain ceased to increase and even began to decrease her subsidies. Second. After the repeal in 1858 of the subsidy act of 1845, Great Britain de- creased her subsidy payments to British lines. This she could do without dam- age to them, since the support with-' . drawn by Congress from our own lines was partly given to the British lines after 1858. When the war came on we were pay- ing 80 per cent, of the cost of our foreign mail service to foreign shipping. Prior to 1858 we had paid nothing to foreign ships for this service. Third. After the war, when Congress again tried to support an American ocean mail service, Great Britain again in-24 creased her subsidies. Feeling again safe, from 1874 to 1878 England reduced her appropriations for subsidies and mail pay. The United States pays 4n the way of subsidy and mail pay to what is called the American Line, owned by the Inter- national Navigation Company, about $700,000 per annum. This may seem an enormous subsidy; but I am informed this payment does not nearly equalize this line with its active British competi- tors, which are operated on a lower scale of wages and enjoy liberal mail pay and subsidies. The steamship companies that now enjoy subsidies naturally do not want other companies to have them. It is stated that for the year 1895-96 the Government made, in transporting for- eign mails on American ships, $800,000— that is, received this sum over and above expenses—and for the last ten years, it is stated that the United States has made, clear of all expenses, in transporting for- eign mails in American ships, $10,000,- 000. This enormous amount came out of the owners of American vessels, while England not only pays her steamers a liberal compensation for carrying the mail, but makes good in certain cases losses sustained by steamship lines. More than forty years ago Great Britain au- thorized by law a board of trade and made its president a member of the min- istry, in order that her shipping and ship- building interests might be better looked after, fostered, and encouraged. Great Britain now aids her shipping by mail pay and subsidies simply because she is’ established and has more than half of the world’s carrying trade. When she began the struggle for the mastery of the seas and for commercial suprem- acy, she combined the policy of dis- criminating duties and subsidies, and before that the exclusion or prohibition of foreign vessels in her foreign trade. If it should suit her purposes better at this time, she would adopt the policy of discriminating duties or prohibition, or both. But with her advantages over other nations, subsidies suit her purposes better. But why should the United States adopt a plan or policy to aid and build up shipping that involves the expendi- ture of money when one is at hand that has been tried and brought success and will brings it again without the expendi- ture of a dollar ? SUBSIDIES PAID BY GREAT BRITAIN TO AID SHIPPING. From 1800 to 1895 Great Britain paid out in the way of subsidies to aid shipping about $300,000,000, besides additional funds from the Board of Admiralty and other sources. Added to this, from 1858 to 1890 the United States paid to British ships for carrying American mails $8,- 628,530. Think of this vast sum being paid out of the Treasury of the United States to foreign steamship companies for carry- ing our mail. The following, taken from the testi- mony before the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee of the House in 1890, shows : SUBSIDIES PAID BY GREAT BRITAIN TO SHIP- PING. Year. To 1800.... To lrfo.... To 1816.... 1817 to 1820 Amount. $5,200,000 8,628,200 4,725,000 1,6.55,000 Remarks. From report British com- mission of revenue in- quiry. Averaging $892,200 yearly Secretary’s report of ex- amination, British fi- nance committee. 1821 to 1830 1831 to 1837 1838 to 1850 1838 to 1850 1851 to 1860 1861 to 1865 5,855,000 6,000,000 25.000. 000 37.000. 000 60.000. 000 '25,000,000 Making to this date, $25,- 063,000. - From the General Post Office alone. Additional from mercan- tile marine fund ' : From the General Post Office alone, subsidies not included. From the General Post Office fund alone in five 1866....... 1867 ...... 1868 ...... 1869 ...... 1870 ...... 1871 ...... 1872 ...... 1873.... .. 1874 ...... 1875 ...... 1876 .....; 1877 ...... 1878 ...... 1879 ...... 1880 ...... 1881....... 1882....... 1883....... 1884 ...... 1885 ...... 1886 ...... 1887 ...... 1888 ...... 1889....... Total. 4,227,018 4,079,966 4.047,586 5,481,690 6,107,761 6,070,741 5,693,500 5,665,296 5,697,346 4,860,000 • 4,420,000 4,255,130 3.813.800 3,891,205 3,865,260 3,592,230 3,524,330 3.608.800 3,608,355 3,642,065 3,662,505 3,625,915 3,490,864 3,184,425 $283,178,988 years. From the General Post Office fund alone in one year. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do. Do.FREE SHIPS. Tiie policy of free ships, which is in substance the authority under law to buy foreign built ships and admit them to American registry, is seriously urged as the best remedy to revive American ship- ping. Maritime reciprocity, which we have had for seventy years, is partial free trade in shipping. To adopt the policy of free ships would give us abso- lute free trade in shipping. We would then have a protective policy for indus- tries on land, and for industries on the sea just the opposite. If it be true that shipping goes hand in hand with other industries, and in a certain sense stimu- lates them, why should we not adopt the same policy as to shipping that we do as to industries on land ? Why have one policy for industries on the sea and an- other for those on Tand ? England’s greatest industry is shipping, and she protects it by subsidies, and in many other ways, and yet in the face of this protection, we are asked to have free trade in shipping and no aid or protec- tion, as -the best means to compete with England and revive American shipping. So far as our shipbuilding interest is concerned, the free ship policy would reduce the United States to, a state of dependence and vassalage. If the United States had in the beginning adopted the policy of free trade instead of protection, on the ground that we should buy manu- factured products abroad because we could get-them cheaper, our manufactur- ing interests to-day would be in the de- plorable condition our shipping is. But, for the protective policy adopted in the early history of our Government, and adhered to since, we could not have built up our manufacturing interests. The object of imposing duties on foreign made products was not only for the pur- pose ofdgeiting needed revenue to pay the expenses of the Government, but its greater and wider purpose was to build up the manufacturing interests so that we might be independent of all the world. The same rule applies to ship- building and: shipping interests. Because we can buy ships cheaper from foreign shipbuilders is not a sufficient reason for doing so. If we should, pursue- this policy, we never would build our own ships, we never would have a merchant marine or a navy. We have had partial free trade in ship- ping for seventy years. We are now asked to adopt the policy of absolute free trade in shipping as a remedy to rescue American shipping from the condition it is in as a result of maritime reciprocity. Free trade in shipping is urged as a rem- edy for the evils brought on by partial free trade. DISCRIMINATING DUTIES THE WISER POLICY. Foreign ships now carry nine-tenths of our foreign commerce. Free ship ad- vocates say that we should buy ships abroad to carry the one-tenth we now carry in American-built ships, so as to increase shipping. Ex-Commissioner of Navigation Bates, in my opinion the best informed man in the country on the sub- ject of shipping, says in his report for 1890 : ' i If ships, were given American owners, they could not run them gainfully against subsidized., bounty - paid, insurance - protected, cheaper manned European vessels, except on equalized footing all around. He adds : , • - „ Without protection our vessels cannot get or hold competitive employment. If we had 100 of the finest steamers afloat, we could not run them in com- petition with foreign ships. The condi- tions are not the same. We are. not on an. equal footing with Great Britain and other shipowning countries on the high seas. If we attempted to make con- * ditions equal by subsidies and mail pay, the policy now adopted by Great Britain, we would be met with greater sub- sidies. So that it is not a question of free ships or cheap ships, but it is a ques- tion of getting business for ships after we have them. We can only do this by protection and discrimination, just as we do now and have for one hundred years discriminated in favor of our in- dustries on land against foreign indus- tries. By discriminating laws we make it profitable and in the interest of our peo- ple to buy home products and not for- eign made products. We must, by a like policy, make it profitable to American ships to carry our foreign commerce. Shipbuilding means shipowning. The nation that builds ships is always an owner of ships. The mistake made by the United States26 for seventy years has been in treating shipping as a private industry and of no national concern ; that it did not need encouragement and protection as indus- tries on land; that maritime reciprocity and free carrying was all that was neces- sary to build it up. With Great Britain shipping has always been of national concern and national importance and has received more protection and aid than any industry ever enjoyed in any country. In discussing the subject of protection to English shipping, Mr. Blaine, in his celebrated reply to Mr. Gladstone in 1890, said : It will hot escape Mr. Gladstone’s keen obser- vation that British interests in navigation flour- ish with less rivalry and have increased in greater proportion than any other of the great interests of the United Kingdom. I ask his can- did admission that it is the one interest which England . has protected steadily and deter- minedly, regardless of consistency and regard- less of expense. Nor will Mr. Gladstone fail to one which the national Government has con- sistently refused to protect. ■. The United States has become inde- pendent of all the world in everything on land. We can produce all that is needful for the wants of a great people, but when we come to the sea, notwith- standing our coast line, our position and natural advantages, we are helpless, im- potent, and dependent. If we. buy ships abroad, we have the ships, it is true, but as a . nation we lose the money we pay for them, we lose the business of building the ships, the employment for our people by giving it to foreigners, and lose the market for the raw and manufactured products that enter into shipbuilding, we destroy our shipyards and become utterly dependent on foreign countries in one of the most important branches of industry. Even if we could buy ships cheaper abroad, in the long run it would pay us to build them at home. If the argument for free ships is good as a plan to build up our merchant marine, why should this plan not apply with equal force to building war ships ? Why have different plans for interests so nearly alike ? If it is better to buy ships abroad to build up our merchant marine, it would be better for the same reason to buy our war ships abroad and close up all American ship- yards; A MERCHANT MARINE ESSENTIAL TO A NAVY. No nation can maintain successfully for any length of time a navy unless there is behind it a merchant marine. Shipping" is the element out of which a navy must grow. In the United States we are building a navy without having a merchant marine behind it to support it. This is something like making a head without a body. We should first have a merchant marine and then a navy and native Americans to man' both. We have "not enough native American sea- men to man the war ships we now have. If we build up shipping and ship- building, it will increase our home com- merce and our lake and coastwise trade. We are in the infancy of our industries on our lakes, rivers, and foreign seas. During the next, century seagoing ships built in American shipyards will leave Chicago and other lake cities for the ports of the world. No nation can be truly independent and have and maintain a navy and mer- chant marine that does not build its own ships. Senator King, of New York, on March 15, 1822, said : Navigation and maritime industry, a pe' culiar reason, call for national protection, for the art of navigation is an expedient of war as well as of commerce, and in this respect differs from every other branch of industry. Though it was once doubted, doubt no longer exists that a navy is the best defense of the United States. And this maxim is not more true than that a naval power never has existed, and never can exist, without a commercial marine ; hence the policy of encouraging and protecting the ships and seamen of the United States. If the United States in 1860 had had a merchant marine and a navy equal in proportion to that we had in 1812, under discriminating duties, it is safe to say that our civil war could not have lasted more than a year. But for the want of a navy and merchant marine the war lasted four years and cost nearly a mil- lion of lives and thousands of millions of dollars, most of which might have been . saved. - FREE SHIPS WOULD INJURE OUR DOMESTIC SHIPPING. Free ships would inevitably impair our coastwise, lake and river carrying and cause it to decay as our carrying has in our foreign trade. Foreign ship- building would mean foreign shipown-27 - ing. It is the shipbuilding interest ’ quite as much as the shipowning that puts tonnage afloat, gives it employment—the one goes with the other. If we were to admit foreign built ships to American registry and to a share in the carrying of our foreign commerce, it is very doubtful whether or not ships, being once admitted to American regis- try, and by this means nationalized, could by law be excluded from taking part in our coastwise, lake and river trade. When a foreign built ship is ad- mitted to American registry, it becomes entitled to the privileges and rights of vessels built at home, and under the law it is doubtful whether it could be pro- hibited from taking part in our coast- wise, lake and river trade. Under the inherent rights of property it becomes a - question, if an * American citizen owns a vessel duly registered, whether he can by law be prevented from carrying on his business in the home shipping trade, - So that free ships in our foreign trade' would be a menace to our home shipping and tend to break down and destroy our shipbuilding business, and the next step would be free ships in our coastwise, lake and river trade, and the hauling down of the American flag where it has floated for a hundred years over a prosperous industry in the hands of American owners and carried on in American built ships. PROTECTED SHIPOWNING WOULD STIMU- LATE SHIPBUILDING. „ Whenever we protect carrying, and thereby gain business for American ships, building of ships will follow. , This has been our experience in our coastwise, lake and river trade, where we have built for a hundred years, in . our own shipyards, the best ships for that business in the world. American carry- ing has not suffered in the foreign trade because of the inability to build good ships in the United States as much as it has from want of protection. For sev- enty years we have not been on an equal r footing with other nations in the ship- ping business. While Great Britain and other European nations have free ships, yet for a long time they have protected shipbuilding by bounties and otherwise. It may be safely said that all the mari- time powers of the world protect their . shipping and shipbuilding. The spend- " ing in British shipyards of $100,000,000 annually for home and foreign war ship construction is of itself equivalent to an enormous bounty to British shipbuilders. Give the people of the United States busi- ness for their ships, and there will be no doubt about shipbuilding and shipowning being successful in the United States. FAILURE OF THE FREE SHIP POLICY^ After' full and fair trial, the free ship policy has been a signal failure in France, Germany, Austria and Italy.. Norway has increased her shipping under free ships. This is due to the fact of low wages and low prices of supplies and other conditions peculiar to that coun- try. England, after building up her shipping< through discriminating duties and subsidies on an enormous scale, until she has the advantage over all other na- tions, adopts the policy of free ships be- cause it is to her interest. She advocates free ships because she builds ships for, the nations that buy them, and naturally she wants all other nations, the United States especially, to adopt free ships. In 1894 the new tonnage built in her ship- yards amounted to over 1,000,000 tons, 13 per cent, of which was sold to other countries. INCREASE OF BRITISH SHIPPING UNDER MARITIME RECIPROCITY. Under maritime reciprocity in fifty years, according to Mulhall, British ship- ping has increased 210 per cent., while that of other nations has increased 108 per cent.,.and that of the United States constantly declined. During this period British shipping has increased from carry- ing 34 per cent, of the world’s commerce to carrying-56 per cent, of it. If this rate of increase continues, it is only a question of time when Great Britain will absorb the carrying of the commerce of the world. SEA POWER IN HISTORY. Through all history, ships and com- merce have been associated with riches and power. Great ships and shipping in- terests have always brought power and contributed to the prosperity and wealth of the people owning them. Humboldt says : Contact with the ocean has been one of the chief influences in forming character of nations as well as adding to their wealth. The Phoenicians, by reason of their shipping and commercial supremacy, be- -28 came the wealthiest and most civilized of the early Eastern nations. In their turn the Athenians, the Ionic Greeks, and the Spartans dominated the civilized world directly through their prowess on the sea. In truth,, were it not for the fact that the Greeks as a whole were a maritime people, future history might have been modified, (hr land they could scarcely cope with Darius and Xerxes, but at sea they were easily victorious. At this age the seamen were trained in all the walks of commerce and served as the national bulwark in time of war. Carthage, the daughter of Phoenicia, up to the middle of the second century before Christ achieved a position through her maritime commerce at that time un- rivaled in the history of the world. This commerce, destroyed by Rome, was trans- ferred to the conqueror, which for five hundred years remained easily the ruling power of the earth both on land and sea. As Rome decayed, the Norsemen, the Danes, and their kinsfolk became the dominant peoples of northern Europe, and solely by reason of their seamanship the British Isles, France, and Germany became their colonies. Venice, a comparatively small center of population, was, from the beginning of the tenth to the sixteenth century, per- - haps the most wonderful example of de- velopment due directly to this same cause. For upward of three centuries of her history there was no sea in the civil- ized world not laden with her commerce and frequented by her ships. It is a re- markable fact that the governors of Venice and the rulers of Egypt at the be- ginning of the sixteenth century (1504) caref ally considered a plan for the con- struction of that great work of the nine- teenth century, connecting the commerce of the west with that of the east—the Suez Canal. Side by side with Venice came Genoa. Then followed Portugal and Spain. What these two nations ac- complished in commerce, navigation, and colonization the world will never be per- mitted io forget. America owes its dis- covery to the commercial enterprise of these nations. Stimulated by the suc- cess of the Spaniards and Portuguese, and competing successfully with them, came the Dutch, who after a short strug- gle made their fatherland the great ware- house of Europe. England, jealous of the Dutch on ac-. count of tfeeir enormous foreign traffic, and disliking their republican govern- ment, deliberately determined upon the destruction of both. This determination , bore fruit in the navigation laws of the Commonwealth, regarded by Englishmen and legislators with a reverence akin to awe. Not willing to wait the results of the navigation laws, four years after their passage Great Britain waged war against the Dutch for the purpose, of breaking down their carrying. Admiral Monk, in 1665, being asked the reason of the war against the Dutch, replied : 4‘What we want is more of the trade which the Dutchnow have. ’ ’ In order to gain this*trade the Dutchfwere crushed. During the reign of Louis XIV. per- haps the most brilliant period of French history was passing. In 1669 Colbert, the minister of marine, instituted a sys- tem of discrimination and bounty which made the French marine the most pros- perous in that part of the seventeenth century. No single statesman has ever contributed so materially to the pros- perity of France as did Colbert. < TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG. It is said that trade follows the flag ; that is to say, trade follows shipping. Wherever ships go trade follows. The people of the United States, with- out distinction of party, earnestly desire . to enlarge and extend their foreign trade; to sell more of their manufactured and agricultural products. The best means to this end is to increase our carrying. No nation can have its just and proper share in its foreign commerce and in the foreign markets unless it is an owner and builder of ships. The nation that owns shipping has a great advantage in extend- ing its trade and commerce over a nation that has. no ships. The nation that car- ries the products it sends to foreign mar- kets can establish and maintain its trade % better than a nation that simply sells its surplus products and leaves other nations to do the carrying. Shipping and trade go hand in hand. The United States has a large foreign trade, but this would be doubled if its people owned ships and had a merchant marine in proportion. The greatest difficulty in the way of ex- tending* our foreign trade and selling our surplus products is that the people of other countries own the shipping, and naturally try to sell products of their own country. ; A nation productive as the United States should carry in its own ships %- 2D large part of its foreign commerce ; at least the goods it buys and part of all it sells. Apart from shipping being the means of extending foreign trade in other coun- tries, it is profitable from the standpoint of transportation. Our people should - make the profits. that come from the transportation in ships and are paid to other nations. If the people of the United States cbuld make the earnings from carrying what they buy and sell, instead of paying nearly $200,000,000 annually to other nations, the result would be a saying of this amount In 1895 there were 329,558 arrivals and 401,822 depart- ures to and from the ports of the United States, a total of 731,380 passengers, nine- tenths or about 650,000 of whom were carried in foreign vessels at an average of $50 per head, or $32,500,000 made by foreign shipowners out of business which belongs to Americans. ADVANTAGES TO THE WHOLE COUNTRY OF BUILDING UP AMERICAN SHIPPING. 'It is generally supposed that shipping only concerns our Atlantic and Pacific coast States, but this is unfounded. No industry affects the country more widely and generally than shipping. The farmers, as well as the producers of coal, lumber, iron, steel, lead, copper and zinc, and most all other products, are inter- ested in building up the shipping and shipyards of the country. Ninety per cent., of the farm products which are .exported are carried in foreign bottoms. If these products could be transported in vessels of the United States, it would stimulate and help all branches of busi- ness at home. . PASSING THIS BILL WOULD GIVE BUSINESS TO AMERICAN SHIPS. The passage of this bill would provide business for our ships which they do not now have and cannot get under present conditions. Under the provision that this act will not take effect for fifteen months after its passage, ships can be built and gotten ready for the new busi- ness that will come to them. The objec- tion is made, however, that we have not enough ships to do this increased busi- ness and that we cannot build them as [ cheaply as other countries, and therefore could not compete with the cheaper made foreign ships, even with discriminating duties in our favor. - Taking into consideration the cheap- ness of construction of shipping on our lakes and in our coastwise trade, and the reduced cost. of - iron, steel, lumber, and other materials which enter into ship- building, it may be safely claimed that with a large and regular business in ship- building the United States can build the ordinary freight vessel as cheaply as Eng- land and very soon the great ocean steamer. Bearing on this point Presi-. dent Cleveland in his last annual mes- sage said : It is gratifying to state that our ships and their outfits are believed to be equal to the best that can be manufactured elsewhere, and that such notable reductions have been made in their cost as to justify the statement that quite a number of vessels are now being constructed at rates as low as those that prevail in European shipyards. This sustains my contention. We have rigidly excluded foreign shipbuilders from competing or taking part in build- ing our war ships. The result has been that home competition has grown up under which, because of the, demand of the Government, our people have equipped vast shipbuilding plants, one of them at least equal to any abroad ; and we now build war ships as good and as cheaply as any country. With a like demand, ocean steamers should be built in the United States as cheaply as in any place in the world. The policy of discriminating duties would contribute to both building and running ships. Under present con- ditions capital will not invest in Ameri- can shipowning because it can have no assurance that after ships are built they can get business. We import annually from South and Central American countries, Mexico, and the West Indies about one hundred and ninety-five millions of products. These are comparatively non-shipowning coun- tries ; we export to them ninety-one mill- ions of products. If American ships should carry the imports from these countries to the United States, they could compete and take from foreign bottoms the return cargoes, or the carrying of ninety-one millions of exports. Here is the carrying of nearly three hundred millions of products, 90 per cent, of which is now done in foreign ships, which, if this bill becomes a law without retaliation or opposition of any kind, will conie to our ships, and they cannot get it in any other way. If .I am right in assuming that the carrying of our imports ip our own shipsso must follow the adoption of discriminat- ing duties, it would give to American bottoms nearly 1100,000,000 annually without the cost of one dollar to the peo- ple or the Government. No opposition can prevent this result. Under discrimi- nating duties as provided in this bill, without cost of any kind, ocean carrying would seek American ships. * This view is indorsed and well ex- pressed in the following extract from an able editorial by Alex. It. Smith in the journal, Seaboard, of New York, devoted to the cause of American shipping : There is no single act outside of a thoroughly protective Tariff that would do so much to re- store prosperity to the United States in all parts of the country as the passage of . the discrimi- nating duty bill. If American ships could have the carrying of our imports, which would give them regularly the incoming cargo to the United States, this would put them in a position to compete with for- eign ships for outgoing cargo, especially tramp ships coming to our ports in bal- last. It is estimated that more than 5,000 foreign vessels came to our ports in 1894 in ballast in- search of cargoes. It may be said that other shipowning coun- tries, especially Great Britain, would re- taliate and not allow American vessels to haul their imports. In case of retali- ation we might transport in Ameri- can ships only a small share of our ex- ports to shipowning countries, but we would be in the position to take the busi- ness of carrying exports from the United States to countries not owning ships ; we would gain this in addition to carrying our imports in our own ships. It is be- lieved that among the good results that will follow the passage of this bill, one will be, and not the least, it will hasten the creation of a department of com- merce, so much needed and so ably championed by the distinguished chair- man of the* Senate Committee on Com- merce. THE EFFECT ON SHIPBUILDING AND OTHER INDUSTRIES. Prince Bismarck said : The merchant service is the handmaid of all other industries, and of agriculture, manufac- tures, and commerce. On the day when the freight trade is given over to foreigners a mor- tal blow will be dealt to all the industries of the country. ' This is true. While the progress of the United States in building up its in- dustries on land has excited the wonder of the world, yet greater and more sub- stantial progress would have been made had we been able to develop and build up with equal pace our industries on the sea. What we have accomplished in our material progress has been without the aid of one of the most important aux- iliaries to our prosperity. Thomas Jef- ferson said that “ agriculture, manufac- tures, commerce, and navigation are the four pillars of prosperity.” In order that our material development should be symmetrical, all of these should go hand in hand ; but we have moved forward with one of these great interests neg- lected for seventy years, until now it is in a languishing condition and not help- r ful to the other branches of industry. If by the passage of this bill we take from foreign shipowners the carrying of our. imports, we will have gone a great way in the struggle to restore our ship- • ping. CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN CARRYING. . It is needless to discuss the causes of the decline of American carrying further than to endeavor to learn from them, if possible, what may be done to help revive and restore it. Among the causes that have contributed to this' decline may be mentioned : First. The abandonment of the policy- of protection to American shipping by ' discriminating duties under treaties with foreign nations and giving instead of this * protection no aid or encouragement whatever. Second. Competition of American ship- ping, without aid of any kind, with for- eign shipping, highly protected, aided and subsidized. Third. In the absence of any protec- tion or aid to American shipping it has had to pay heavy taxes at home, higher rates of interest, and higher wages than foreign shipping with which it com- petes. Fourth. The hostile discrimination of British Lloyds Register in inspecting, rating, and classifying American ships, obliging them to pay the highest rate of insurance on cargoes and take the low- est rate of freight and wait the longest . in various parts of the world for charters. Added to this the war of English insur- ance companies in the United States against insuring cargoes carried in Amer- ican-built ships,81 STEAMSHIP LINES FROM NEW YORK. Of the 60 ocean passenger and freight lines leaving New York on?v 7 are Ameri- can, the balance foreign. These lines trans- port freight and passengers to and from New York to all parts of the known world. Fifty-three of these ocean lines belong to foreign corporations. They have nearly a thousand vessels earning profits by carrying the goods that Americans buy and sell when American steamship com- panies should be doing the largest part of this business. The problem is how can we secure this business for our peo- ple ? Some say by subsidies, others by free ships, and others that these foreign corporations should not be disturbed in keeping and increasing this business, be- cause treaties stand in the way. Against this network of ocean lines, stretching all over the globe," subsidies could not avail and free ships would be futile. The best remedy is discrimination in favor of American ships under law. THE AMERICAN FLAG ABROAD. The United States consul at Hamburg, in 1892, in response (through the custo- mary official channels) to certain in- quiries concerning American shipping interests at ‘that port, wrote the State Department as follows . It seems a very sad commentary to have to make on the shipping of our country when I re- gatories of the Treas- , the year in question _____ _______„_____0___American steamer of any sort or tonnage entered’at this port. Nor can I find in the records of this consulate, cover- ing a period of over thirty-five years, a trace of any others, with the exception of the year 188S, when one steamer of about 1,900 gross tons hap- pened in. I cannot but believe that such an an- nouncement would astound most of our people, when it is considered that Hamburg, a city or over half a million souls, is, after Liverpool and New York, the largest shipping port in the world ; that it is by far the most important sea- port and distributing center of the Continent; that in its harbor can be seen the flag of every third-rate power in the world that has a sea- coast ; that so large a part of it has been built with American dollars ; that its import and ex- port trade with the United States is larger by much than that with any other country, and that one steamship line alone dispatches, on an LJLltLL UUO OU^OiJ-ULOJJJLp JJLJLLv? \ average, over three steamers a week the year around, carrying passengers to the United States, while the same number bring them back .’from there. ;ers-----■L' ~'~ n there. Not only have none of our steain- participated in the carrying trade of this jrt for years, but of sailing vessels bearing our nag there were during the year ending June 30, 1894, but two; during 1893, 1892, and 1891, two each, and during 1890, none. J The Commissioner of Navigation, in his report for 1898, after quoting this let- ter, adds : for the every bushel of grain which left New York last year for Europe was carried under a foreign flag; the British at the ports of Great Britain and 3 land the Stars and Stripes appeared only times, and that of these, 45 times the flag y borne by four steamships ; That of 15,875 entries in 1891 (the latest year for which figures are at hand) of vessels bearing the flag of every nationality but the German at v?} XAJJ.4.UA XKjCki. . separately enumex«i;c7vx, but are classed as part of scattering,” 22 ves- sels, of 16,000 registered tons ; That of 12,774 entries of vessels, measuring 10j612,438 tons, bearing the flag of every nation- ality other than the Italian, which entered the ports of Italy during 1893, only 37 vessels, of 17,- 665 tons, with crews, aggregating 453 men, car- ried the American flag, and of these 13 vessels, of 14,114 tons, with crews aggregating 313 men, were pleasure yachts; That the American pleasure yachts, 6 in num- Gibraltar last year m tne Mediterranean, wmtner ninety years ; the United States dispatched Preble and L_ _ catur to assert the rights of American ship- ping ; That of 11,000 vessels which have passed through the Suez Canal in the last three years only 6 have borne the Amercan flag, and 2 of these were war vessels. During the year 1894 only one Ameri- can Vessel entered Berjen, the second port of the Kingdom of Norway, while 1,279 vessels of other nations entered and cleared at this important port. From 1886 to 1895—nine years—only 15 American vessels passed through the Suez Canal, 4 of which were warships and yachts. In 1896 no American vessel of any kind passed through, while 8,407 foreign vessels used the canal, with a tonnage of 8,594,000 tons, the receipts for toll amounting to about 116,000,000. In 1894 15,663 British vessels entered and cleared at various ports of the United States. During the year 1895 the entries and clearances of American vessels in Great Britain were 83.. During this same year the number of vessels in foreign trade entered and cleared in ports of Great Britain aggregated 124,168. In 1894 the aggregate tonnage entered and cleared in ports of Great Britain was 80,636,000 tons, of which 536,446 were under the United States flag, or precisely two-thirds of 1 per cent. During the same year the aggregate tonnage in for- eign trade entered and cleared at United States ports was 19,989,663 tons, of which 10,841,524 tons was British, or 54 per cent. ' * ' At London, in 1894, the aggregate tom*33 nagewas 14,433,580 tons, of which only about 17,000 tons were American. At Liverpool the same year the aggre- gate tonnage was 10,389,578 tons, of which 86,639 tons were American. At Cardiff (Wales) the trade aggre- gated a tonnage of 10,478,391, of which not a single ton was American. There are 53 steamships running in regular lines from England, France, Ger- many, and Canada to Sydney, against 3 from the United States. Out of the 533 steamers which last year entered the port of Buenos Ayres, a city of 700,000 inhabitants, not one was American. In 1895 a person starting around tlio world was asked to make a note during the trip of the number of times ho might see the American flag flying on Ameri- can vessels. The report made after the trip was that he did not see the Ameri- can flag once on an American vessel. Of the ton chief maritime nations of the world, the United States and Italy have shown a decline since 1875. Ger- many, almost without a seaooast as com- pared with the United States, stands ahead of her in shipping in the foreign trade. In the year 1894 Mexico and Central and South America bought $530,000,000 of foreign products, 6 per cent, only of which was carried in American ships. In the year 1894 the voyages made by American merchant vessels between the United States and Europe were 253, while European vessels made 10,333 voy- ages. The tonnage of Amorican vessels in our West Indian and South American trade in recent years has declined from about 87 per cent, to 68 per cent., and with South America from 93 per cent, to 75 per cent., and English vessels have gained what we lost. In 1898, 8.045 English ships entered Argentine ports, while only 103 Ameri- can ships touched at those ports. Only 8.4 per cent, of the world’s ship- ping is American. British ships carry about 67 per cent, of our foreign com- merce. In 1893 there were employed in the British merchant marine 316,177 persons, 85 per cent, being native Englishmen. In 1894 there were employed in Ameri- can domestic and foreign shipping about 70,000 persons, 80 per cent, being native Americans and 70 per cent, foreigners. The facts and figures just recited are humiliating to all Americans ; indeed, they show how little claim we have to be called a maritime nation when we should to-day have the greatest merchant marine and he the greatest maritime power on the globe. Mi*. President, I have tried in what I have said to present the cause of Ameri- can shipping to the Senate and to the country, with the earnest wish that Con- gress will do something looking to its restoration. If I do nothing more than draw attention to the facts and help to add to the interest already aroused in this great subject, 1 will feel amply rewarded for whatever I have done or may do here- after. If any plan hotter than the one proposed here can be suggested, I will accept it, though it must he insisted, Mr. President, that the policy of discriminat- ing duties sanctioned by the founders of our Government and tried for more than thirty years, with the best results, lias again received the approval of the people in the last national election, and should at least have another trial at the hands of Congress. American ocean carrying, so long neg- lected, is not the cause of any party nor of any particular interest ; it belongs to no section ; it concerns the whole coun- try, its future prosperity and welfare ; it has become the cause of 70,000,000 of people : henceforth they will take care of it; in their keeping it will no longer languish ; it will not die, but prosper and grow and bless the country as in days gone by. I feel, Mr. President, sooner or later, the patriotic cause of upbuilding Ameri- can shipping will triumph, and Ameri- cans will enjoy and use their common share in the oceans of the world and have their part in its carrying trade ; that the time is not distant when the American flag will be seen on every Bea and float from vessels of the United States in all the ports of the earth, and American merchants, business men, and bankers will be established and doing re- munerative business in all the commer- cial centers of the world. 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