EXTENSION OF OUR MERCHANT MARINE 347 



But are we helpless, and are we outwitted? Let us look at these 

 treaties, and see if anything could be added to the said opinion of our 

 Attorney General. We shall find that almost without exception each 

 of them contains a clause permitting either party at his pleasure, upon 

 a specified notice generally of one year, to terminate it. No breach of 

 treaty or of contract is necessary to terminate the treaties recited in 

 the Attorney General's opinion. To serve general notice that unless 

 these treaties are so modified as to give us back the freedom of 1789 

 we intend availing ourselves of their abrogating clauses would gain us 

 respect from those very foreign chancelleries which to-day laugh openly 

 over their success in catching our merchant marine in their net of 

 treaties. It would be both interesting and useful for us to learn which, 

 if any, of those chancelleries would decline to make such modifications, 

 and thus force us to serve the required notice upon them ! The Demo- 

 cratic party loves to quote Jefferson, and all parties to quote Washing- 

 ton — very good, let them, once freed from our present plight, join in 

 re-enacting the laws which those two early statesmen put on our statute 

 books. Fortunately we are not here confronted with a question like 

 that involved in the Panama Canal Treaty — in that treaty there was 

 no abrogating clause, and we will live up to that bargain in which Eng- 

 land got so much the better of us, cost what it may. England will live 

 to regret that treaty, or else she will wisely consent to its modification. 

 Parentheticalh^, is it not the duty of our government, the very next 

 time England asks a favor to exact, as a condition to granting it, that 

 the Hay-Pauncefote be so modified that we can do what we like withi 

 the canal built by our brains and our millions ! 



This message comes from no youthful debating societies, nor is it- 

 prefaced by the word "please" — it comes from thousands of men, full' 

 grown in their heads as in their bodies, business men who have organ- 

 ized to protect their rights and to get what they deserve, and who have 

 come to know of certain impediments thereto which they properly expect 

 to have removed by the government which they themselves elected. No 

 untried remedies are being sought — two of them have been successfully 

 tested by the German Government and the third by our own dear 

 country under the guidance of Washington and Jefferson. Here is the 

 message — but what will our government do about it? 



THE EXTENSION OF OUR MERCHANT MARINE 



By GEORGE W. NORRIS 



DIKECTOR OF WHARVES;, DOCKS AND FERRIES, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 



THE subject which has been assigned to me for discussion this after- 

 noon is " The Extension of our Merchant Marine." With all re- 

 spect I would suggest that "The Revival of our Merchant Marine" 



