EXTENSION OF OUR MERCHANT MARINE 2>SZ 



poses at any time. This act, and a similar one introduced in the pre- 

 vious session, have been criticized in many quarters. Some persons 

 regard them as " paternalistic," and others brand them as " socialistic." 

 Some object to the idea of using public money to run steamship lines at 

 a loss. Some persons given to seeing ghosts can only regard this as 

 schemes to buy the German steamers tied up in our ports; while to 

 others the specter assumes the form of "an entering wedge to govern- 

 ment operation of transportation by land as well as by water." Others 

 oppose them because they believe the navigation laws should be changed. 

 Others because they believe that the proper remedy is in subsidies to 

 privately owned and operated lines. Both these last classes are unwill- 

 ing that the patient should be cured by any other remedy than their 

 own — although they will probably admit that there never was a time 

 when the acceptance of either of these remedies was so unlikely as just 

 now. As to the idea that the adoption of such a measure would be a 

 precedent for railroad operation by the government, or would in the 

 slightest degree pave the way to any such result, I can imagine nothing 

 more unlikely. The conditions which exist in ocean transportation, and 

 the theory upon which governmental intervention must be justified, are 

 so wholly diif erent from the railroad situation, that there can be neither 

 analogy nor comparison between the two. Moreover, as the govern- 

 mental intervention would probably be temporary — ultimately yielding 

 the field to private capital — and would probably show a balance on the 

 wrong side of the ledger, opponents of government ownership of rail- 

 roads should rather welcome the experiment as likely to prove an illu- 

 minating object-lesson. The bill authorizes the shipping board to " pur- 

 chase or construct " vessels. While much-needed orders would quickly 

 be given to our ship-yards, no doubt, pending constniction, some vessels 

 would be either purchased or chartered, to take care of the present trade 

 emergency, and it is quite possible — perhaps likely — that some of these 

 would be German. Does this detail damn the whole proposition? 

 The other objections — paternalism, socialism, and the use of public 

 money in a probably non-remunerative enterprise — all involve the same 

 principle. Men always have differed, and always will differ, as to just what 

 functions governments — national, state or municipal — should under- 

 take. Leaving out the extremists at both ends, I think it may be said 

 that a very large majority of our people are of opinion that government 

 should provide all those things necessary to the health, safety and 

 comfort of the community which private capital does not and will not 

 provide* Where private capital might do it on certain terms, or where 

 private capital is doing it and there is a dispute as to the efficiency of 

 the service or the fairness of the rates and terms, there is always and 

 necessarily a wide field for argument. But where the thing is neces- 

 sary, and private capital has not undertaken, and will not undertake. 



