MERCHANT MAKINE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



527 



act of 1872 (title 53, Revised Statutes). It is a heavy 

 tax on shipping. For its repeal there is a general sen- 

 timent in the testimony, with the exception of Captain 

 Duncan, who, with his family and employe's in the 

 Shipping Commissioner's office, has^used and yet uses 

 the thousands exacted from shipping, and this, too, 

 without any benefit to any one except those who 

 administer the law. _The committee, however, have 

 only gone so far on this topic as to allow the ship- mas- 

 ter to select his own crew where he elects to do so, 

 and this will relieve the shipping interest, in the 

 opinion of the committee, of a great and crying evil. 

 Under this law our consuls are authorized^ to act as 

 shipping commissioners in foreign ports, and to exact 

 a fee of two dollars for shipping each seaman. In 

 addition to this, consuls exact their consular fee for 

 certifying each shipment. The expense of procuring 

 each seaman is thus three dollars, and two dollars in 

 addition for the agent who procures the seaman, mak- 

 ing in all five dollars. Under the British law the cost 

 is only equivalent to two shillings, or forty-six cents. 

 If, however, the decline of American shipping contin- 

 ues much longer, these reforms will be unnecessary, for 

 there will be no sailors hired or discharged, and no 

 necessity of invoking or discarding the co-operation of 

 consuls, for there will be no ships of ours engaged in 

 foreign trade. 



6. Reform and revise the tariff, and the natural re- 

 sources of our country and the intelligence of our peo- 

 ple are such that, with the reduction of the burden of 

 taxes and prices consequent on low rates of duty, we 

 shall regain in the next twenty years more than we 

 have lost in the last twenty, and become the first mari- 

 time nation of the world. 



7. Without resorting to the artificial expedient of 

 subsidies and bounties, let Congress assimilate in their 

 treatment steamships and railroads on established 

 routes, to the extent of paying steamships for carry- 

 ing the mails of the United States good compensation 

 as good as the Government now pays railways for 

 performing similar service. 



In conclusion, the minority report says : 



"Whatever may be the cause of this decay, the main 

 obstacle to its resuscitation, and without the removal 

 of which all other legislation is futile, is the obstruc- 

 tion to commerce by the tariff. This adds its 40 

 odd per cent, not to speak of prohibition, to the other 

 obstructions which the committee propose to remove 

 by the bills ordered to be reported. When we reform 

 our whole tariff system and extend our markets for 

 our continually increasing surplus, we may revive the 

 means by which we ourselves may exchange the prod- 

 ucts of this country with those of other countries, and 

 thus not only save the $140,000,000 paid to foreigners 

 in freightage and fares, but gradually resuscitate that 

 art, the very apprenticeship to which is almost obso- 

 lete. 



The decadence of our shipping, and its causes, are 

 all too familiar to the public mind. The selfishness 

 which prevents its resuscitation is no less familiar. It is 

 an old, old story. The minority of the committee would 

 repeat it in detail, were it not known to every tyro in 

 commerce and economy. They would rehearse if by 

 studying the causes of the decay we could remove the 

 effects. The simple truth is, the removal of the causes 

 of decay will not revive shipping. Our shipping in- 

 terests have been choked by other interests choked 

 to death. Restrictions cumber our statutes. In a coun- 

 try so abundant in production as ours, which seeks 

 every market ; and is unlimited in its range of enter- 

 prise, the capital policy is mare liberum. Give us a 

 free sea and freedom to trade upon its bosom, permit 

 us to buy in the best market the material to fashion 

 vessels of the best quality and to bring the completed 

 ship where our competitors buy their vessels, and even 

 without the opportunity which foreign wars may give 

 to our carrying-trade, and with the aroused inventive 

 faculty of America consequent upon our freedom to 

 use our energy and skill, and with the natural laws 



and their conditions to aid intelligence and niter- 

 change, and we may once more find the capital, labor, 

 and genius of our countrymen evoke from the sea, as 

 they have from the land, its most valued treasures. 

 Our merchant marine languishes for lack of liberty. 

 Its revival must come from the enlargement of our 

 freedom. 



The minority of the joint select committee, while 

 concurring with the report as to the measures reported 

 by the committee, desire also to present two other 

 propositions : First, for the admission free of duty of 

 all the materials finished and perfected and ready to 

 put together a ship ; and, second, for the free admis- 

 sion to American registry of ships built abroad. 



The amendment to the bill proposed by the 

 minority of the committee was in the follow- 

 ing terms : 



All or any part of the materials, whether wood, 

 steel, or iron, copper, yellow metal, bolts, spikes, 

 sheathing, treenails, canvas for sails, whether flax or 

 cotton ; rigging and cordage, whether hemp, Manila 

 hemp, or iron wire ; anchors and cables, iron plates, 

 castings and forgings, angle -irons, beams, masts, 

 yards, rivets, bolts, nuts, screws, engines, boiler- 

 plates and tupes and machinery, and all other mate- 

 rials and appliances which may be necessary for the 

 construction and equipment in whole or in part of 

 vessels, whether steam or sail vessels, to be built and 

 furnished in the United States after the 1st day of 

 January, 1883, may be imported in bond under such 

 regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may pre- 

 scribe, and, upon proof that such materials have been 

 used for such purpose, no duties shall be collected or 

 paid thereon. That from and after the 1st day of 

 January, 1883, any citizen or citizens of the United 

 States may purchase the whole of any steam or sail 

 vessel, no matter where said vessel may have been 

 built, whether within the United States or in a for- 

 eign country, or whether said vessel shall be regis- 

 tered free of duty as to her hull, spars, appliances, 

 outfitj and equipment (including boilers, engines, and 

 machinery if a steam-vessel) as a vessel of the United 

 States by the collector in any port of entry of the 

 United States, to whom application for such registry 

 may be made by said citizen or citizens, in the same 

 manner as though said vessel had been built in the 

 United States. 



The bill came up in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives early in January, 1883, and was the 

 subject of an animated discussion. On the 

 llth of that month the free ships and free 

 materials amendment was in substance adopt- 

 ed by a vote of 125 to 104, the drawback pro- 

 vision of the 'eighteenth section being also re- 

 tained, but on the following day the House 

 receded from this action and struck out the 

 whole section as amended, and the others sup- 

 plementary to its provisions. Section 14 was 

 modified so as to permit the admission of for- 

 eign materials, without payment of duty, to be 

 used in the construction and equipment as well 

 as the repair and supply of vessels built for 

 and used in foreign trade, including that be- 

 tween the Atlantic and the Pacific ports of the 

 United States. Section 15 was changed so as 

 to substitute for the existing tonnage tax a 

 duty of six cents per ton on each entry of ves- 

 sels from the ports of Canada, the West Indies 

 and Mexico, and southward to and including 

 Panama and Aspinwall, and twelve cents a ton 

 on vessels from other foreign ports. The sec- 

 tion relating to State and municipal taxation 

 was stricken out. With a few other unimpor- 



