224 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMEEIOAN SHIPPING.) 



2971 Revised Statutes) goods in bonded ware- 

 houses after three years. It is a blow at for- 

 eign commerce. 



u Not the least among the efficient causes 

 which embarrass our shipping are the taxes 

 placed upon our ships in foreign ports. Spain 

 is especially odious on this account. 



" I do not therefore greatly rely upon any 

 method proposed by the majority for the re- 

 vival of onr ship-building and ship-using, al- 

 though I must commend the perspicuous en- 

 ergy and intelligence of the gentleman from 

 Maine (Mr. Dingley). They urge through his 

 bill and report, various schemes besides those 

 in the reported bill, but make no section in the 

 bill to carry them out ; as, for instance, a system 

 of postal charge, of apprenticeship, and a board 

 of trade. 



" State as well as Federal legislation is need- 

 ed. There are certain necessities for the revival 

 of navigation and commerce, which do not de- 

 pend upon congressional legislation. They are 

 under State and municipal control, such as 

 pilotage, wharfage, harbor-masters' dues, quar- 

 antine fees, port-wardens' duties. But these, 

 like the other minor matters of the bill of the 

 committee, are but feeble auxiliaries in the labor 

 of regaining our mercantile supremacy. 



" The relief, whatever it is, must come as 

 well to the ship-using as to the ship-building 

 interest. Even if we remove all the burdens 

 upon the use of ships, it will avail nothing so 

 long as the ships can not be bought or made as 

 cheaply at home as abroad. 



" If, therefore, our tariff laws will not allow 

 us to build nor our navigation laws to buy, of 

 what use is the bill of the majority? What is 

 the necessity of taking burdens from the run- 

 ning of vessels which we have not and can not 

 buy or build ? 



" Hence the minority report explicitly says 

 that 



" "While the committee are generally agreed upon 

 the measures proposed, the minority are constrained 

 to notice the fact that the most vital and prominent re- 

 lief, by the freedom of materials for ships from customs 

 dues, and the right to purchase ships abroad, is utterly 

 ignored in the majority report. In the opinion of the 

 minority, nothing could be more futile, not to say ab- 

 surd, than to deal with a vital disease by remedies 

 which only affect the superficial ailments whose re- 

 moval would leave the patient in as dangerous a plight 

 as ever. . 



" Go on, gentlemen ! Modify your shipping 

 laws, remove burdens, extend privileges, copy 

 the British code! We will aid you in the ex- 

 periment as far as you go, and would bid you 

 go further, to fare better. Compensate for 

 mail service; make ship-supplies free; adapt 

 your rules to the new class of seamen ; make 

 a new and inexpensive consular code for their 

 discharge and return home; prohibit the ad- 

 vance wages and ' blood-money ' ; allow a Nor- 

 wegian or Italian to be an American mate ; 

 limit the liability of ship-owners; reduce the 

 hospital-tax ; modify the tonnage-tax, or repeal 

 it altogether ; erase from every State statute 



the local taxation on shipping ; ay, even erect 

 a bureau like the British Board of Trade as 

 the special cherub to keep watch over poor 

 Jack ; do all these as your committee suggest. 

 Do more! Out of your treasury, or out of 

 the tonnage fund, mostly collected from foreign 

 shipping, make a sort of allowance for the use 

 of certain American materials in building ships ; 

 and yet, like the young man in Scripture, one 

 thing ye will lack. You may copy the English 

 statute?, as liberalized in 1849 in allowing Eng- 

 lishmen to buy ships where they pleased, and 

 in 1854, when they opened their coasting trade 

 to all the world. 'Begin,' as your majority 

 say Great Britain did (p. 8), ' begin a complete 

 revision of the merchant-shipping statutes, so 

 as to remove every obstacle and give every fa- 

 cility,' and then you may have some dim hope 

 of the resurrection of our wrecked marine! 



" I pause here, Mr. Speaker, to ask, first, 

 what are our navigation laws? Wherein do 

 they obstruct the revival of our shipping? 



" Briefly they are : That a vessel of the United 

 States engaged in the foreign trade must be 

 registered to entitle it to the rights and privi- 

 leges of a vessel of the United States ; and to 

 be so registered must be built within the 

 United States and belong wholly to citizens 

 of the United States, or be captured in war and 

 condemned as a prize, or be adjudged forfeited 

 for breach of the laws of the United States, 

 being wholly owned by citizens of the United 

 States. No vessel can be registered, or, if 

 registered, entitled to the benefits and privi- 

 leges of a vessel of the United States, if owned 

 in whole or in part by any citizen of the United 

 States who usually resides in a foreign country, 

 during the continuance of such residence, un- 

 less he be a consul of the United States or 

 agent for a partner in some house of trade 

 consisting of citizens of the United States, 

 actually carrying on trade within the United 

 States, or if owned in whole or in part by any 

 naturalized citizen of the United States who 

 resides more than one year in the country from 

 which he came, or for more than two years in 

 any foreign country, unless he be a consul or 

 agent of the United States. No vessel regis- 

 tered as a vessel of the United States licensed 

 or authorized to sail under a foreign flag and 

 to have the protection of any foreign govern- 

 ment during the existence of the rebellion can 

 be deemed or registered as a vessel of the United 

 States, or to have the rights and privileges of 

 such vessels, except under provisions of law 

 especially authorizing such register. A regis- 

 ter may be issued to a vessel built in a foreign 

 country when such vessel shall be wrecked in 

 the United States and be purchased and re- 

 paired by a citizen of the United States, if 

 the repairs equal three fourths of the cost of 

 such vessel when repaired. 



"The navigation laws are practically dead 

 for the purpose of their being. Let us 



"... rise on stepping-stones 

 Of their dead selves to higher things. 





