CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMEEIOAN SHIPPING.) 



ought to change, the laws which govern our 

 marine. The laws of eighty years ago are not 

 suited to our changed condition. Those laws 

 suited sail, not iron or steam. As soon think 

 of returning to the stage-coach or the footman 

 for land conveyance, or to the skin boat of the 

 Esquimaux or junk of the Chinese for sea 

 transportation, as to run the ocean-fleet of to- 

 day under the ancient laws. Nay, as well 

 think of discarding the new motors of physics 

 and their energies as return 'even to the wooden 

 paddles of the early Ounarder, with its petty 

 1,200 tonnage and its little subsidy. 



" Thus the very causes which produced our 

 disasters are as obsolete and inoperative as the 

 slave-trade itself. The very model upon which 

 our navigation laws were molded has been 

 shattered, and our shipping to-day, with all 

 these restrictions, guards, and prohibitions, is 

 as useless and uninteresting as the 'fat weed 

 that rots on Lethe's wharf.' 



"It matters, therefore, little, to examine 

 into the causes which produced the decay of 

 our marine. When we see other nations im- 

 proving their marine by liberal policies while 

 our Government has neglected to adopt them, 

 the solution is easy. As well expect the boor 

 of Russia, with his old modes of farming his 

 wheat, to compete with the American farmer 

 with his new implements of labor and time- 

 saving, as the United States rival Germany and 

 England in shipping without the marine in- 

 strumentalities which these nations employ. 



" It matters more to examine the existing 

 obstacles to the resuscitation of our shipping 

 interests. Can we remove them if we find 

 them ? Are they of such a nature that enacting 

 or repealing laws will bring the desired relief? 



" One stubborn obstacle which time and so- 

 cial changes alone can remove is referred to in 

 the minority report. It is the diversion of our 

 energies to other pursuits more profitable. 



" 'It is not likely,' say the minority, k that 

 any great increase or revival will take place 

 until we have reached the maximum in other 

 lines of labor and enterprise, especially in agri- 

 culture. When that point is reached and our 

 energies are diverted to other pursuits, the 

 ocean may have its olden attraction and re- 

 muneration for our people.' 



" The census reports our marvelous opu- 

 lence in flock and field, in mine and mill. We 

 are producers of food for ourselves and man- 

 kind ; oil, gold, silver, and coal, and railroads 

 beyond the wildest dreams, all the results of 

 natural wealth and applied industry ; yet we 

 are so poor th:it the $140,000,000 of the carry- 

 ing-trade, whose Pactolian current should be 

 ours, is turned from us. At the end of the fis- 

 cal year 1882 we had a tonnage of 4,165,933 in 

 that business, of which 1,292,294 was in the 

 foreign carrying-trade. Yet the coasting trade 

 grew and railroad transportation grew. In 

 ten years from 1871 to 1881 the miles of rail- 

 road leaped up from 60,283 to 104,813, and 

 exports from our farms more than quadrupled. 



223 



Export has grown wonderfully, but your rail- 

 road magnate is petted by bonds and lands and 

 monopolizing charters. He may own a rail- 

 road and not hide his property under a foreign 

 flag. He may not ignore his civic right, while 

 the American ship-owner must cringe down 

 below the hatchway while the Spanish flag of 

 blood and gold, or the British union-jack, or 

 the Norwegian and German ensigns, float over 

 his clandestine property. 



" It is notorious that not a little of foreign 

 tonnage is owned by Americans. The form in 

 which it is hidden, by corporations and mort- 

 gage, is explained in the testimony. 



" The ' Red Star ' line between Antwerp and 

 the United States is nine tenths owned in 

 Pennsylvania. Their ships are building on the 

 Mersey. They asked proposals from our ship- 

 builders, and found them 15 per cent, more 

 than the foreign ship-builders ; and they were 

 compelled to go under foreign flags. 



" In fact, the best part of the capital of our 

 country employed in shipping or ship-using is 

 under alien flags. 



" Another and kindred reason for the loss 

 of our carrying-trade and the failure to restore 

 it, is that other countries have laid hands on 

 that which slipped from us in our preoccupa- 

 tion during the civil war. For others, vessels 

 are now at work; for others, vessels are being 

 built on the best models. The seamen, the 

 skill, the capital, and the enterprise of others 

 hold the lines of sea adventure. Possession, 

 with its concomitant advantages, is not ours. 

 We have to struggle valiantly for what others 

 have already. 



" So that, Mr. Speaker, to remove this mount- 

 ain in our path we must remodel the whole 

 industrial system of our own half- hemisphere, 

 and we must turn and overturn natural laws of 

 supply and demand in other spheres of labor 

 and locality. This being impossible, what re- 

 mains for us except tentative legislation, the 

 repeal of burdens on navigation here, of a lia- 

 bility on a ship-owner there, a reasonable com- 

 pensation for mails, in many directions ; and as 

 the best thing, in the judgment of our wisest 

 economists and merchants, freedom for all 

 stores and materials and liberty to purchase 

 vessels wherever we please to buy. 



" If these remedies fail, then the country 

 must await some catastrophe in the shape of 

 a great foreign war, which, like the Crimean, 

 calls our marine into being and activity; but 

 even then we must have the right to buy freely, 

 else it will be useless to regard the opportunity. 

 Or perhaps some exceptional progress may 

 be made in the building of ships or the motive 

 power of its enginery. This may give us a 

 fresh start and added momentum, such as Eng- 

 land received in her iron-ship building. 



u One needed reform is to do at our ports 

 what other countries do allow unlimited ware- 

 housing of goods, that shippers and merchants 

 may make up a variety of cargo. AVe have a 

 law which forfeits to the Government (section 



