230 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMEEICAN SHIPPING.) 



quarter of a cent per pound. What would one 

 quarter of a cent a pound have done for us in 

 the competition with English iron- ship build- 

 ers ? Nothing at all. Consequently the diffi- 

 culty in the construction of iron vessels under 

 the tariff of 1846 was practically as great as 

 the difficulty in their construction under the 

 tariff of 1861. 



" I have alluded to this point merely to 

 show that the causes" of the decline of the 

 American foreign carrying-trade are outside 

 of any controversy between the friends of a 

 tariff for revenue and a tariff for protection. 



" Prof. Sumner, perhaps the ablest advocate 

 of free trade in the United States, thus brushes 

 aside the tariff argument of the gentleman 

 from New York : 



" No doubt these changes (from wood to iron and 

 sails to steam ) have been the chief cause of the decline 

 of ship-building in this country, and legislation has 

 had only incidental effects. It is a plain fact of his- 

 tory that the decline in ship-building began before 

 the war and the high tariff. North American Review, 

 No. 132. 



"It is important, Mr. Speaker, that we 

 should brush aside all of these things which 

 have nothing to do with the problems under 

 consideration, and endeavor to come down to 

 the facts we are investigating and ascertain the 

 causes and devise nemedies for the difficulty. 



" The gentleman from New York was pleased 

 to intimate that one great cause of the success 

 of the British carrying-trade as against that of 

 the United States, was due to the fact that in 

 1849 Great Britain modified her navigation 

 laws so as to admit to registry under her laws 

 foreign-built vessels. Now, I have to reply to 

 that suggestion that the facts show quite oth- 

 erwise. This modification of the British law 

 took place in 1849, it is true; and as its influ- 

 ence was exerted at once, we should reason- 

 ably expect, from the importMnce assigned to 

 the free-ship remedy, a steady gain from that 

 time forward of British tonnage as against 

 American. But an investigation "will show the 

 fact is exactly the reverse. From 1849 for 

 three years the merchant-marine of the United 

 States increased more rapidly, as compared 

 with that of the United Kingdom, than ever 

 before in the history of this country. Between 

 1849 and 1855 the merchant marine of the 

 United States increased 1,877,985 tons, and 

 that of the United Kingdom only 894,828. It 

 was during this period of six years' operation 

 of the free-ship policy of Great Britain that 

 the American merchant marine enjoyed its 

 highest prosperity. This prosperity would 

 have increased after 1855 had it not been for a 

 new factor which appeared in the revolution 

 then fairly inaugurated from wood to iron and 

 sails to steam. 



" Even Mr. W. S. Lindsay, the most promi- 

 nent promoter of the British legislation of 

 1849, is compelled to admit, in his 'History of 

 Merchant Shipping,' that it was in fact the 

 revolution from wood to iron and sails to 



steam, and not the free-ship law, that gave the 

 English merchant marine the advantage of our 

 own which has resulted so disastrously to 

 American tonnage. Speaking of the results 

 of the first year's operations of this law, he 

 says: 



" Our [the British] ship-owners naturally viewed 

 with great alarm. the rapid strides made by American 

 shipping. Nor were their fears allayed by a reference 

 to the Board of Trade returns, wherein it appeared that 

 while the increase of British shipping had in the year 

 previous to repeal been 393,955 tons, 'there had been a 

 decrease in the year after repeal of 180,576 tons. Our 

 position appeared, therefore, critical j and had it not 

 been for the resources we held within ourselves [re- 

 ferring to iron, coal, and cheap labor] and the indom- 

 itable energy of our people, foreign shipping might 

 then and there have gained an ascendency which 

 might not afterward have been easily overcome. . . . 

 We had one advantage which our great American com- 

 petitor did not possess. We had' iron in abundance, 

 and about this period we were specially directing our 

 attention to the construction of iron ships to be pro- 

 pelled by the screw. 



"Speaking subsequently of the contest for 

 supremacy of the seas between 1853 and 1854, 

 the same distinguished English ship-builder 

 says: 



" A very large amount of capital had been invested 

 by Americans in the famous ships employed in the 

 California trade ; but even these before the close of 

 1854 were becoming unremunerative, owing to the 

 competition of British iron and screw steamers, which 

 were the main weapon whereby we bade defiance to 

 the competition of all other nations in the general 

 ocean race then just commenced. Lindsay's " Mer- 

 chant Shipping/' page 358. 



" Could we have a stronger confirmation of 

 the fact that it was not the free- ship policy 

 which England inaugurated in 1849 that gave 

 her an advantage over us, but that it was solely 

 the accidental revolution in the. ocean carrying- 

 trade which saved her from being distanced 

 more and more by our wooden clipper-ships? 

 We are thus brought to the conclusion that 

 the inception of the decline of our foreign car- 

 rying-trade between 1855 and 1861 was due to 

 two causes : 



" 1. The great change in over-ocean trans- 

 portation wliich was gradually being made 

 from wooden vessels to iron, and from sails to 

 steam and the screw-propeller a change which 

 gave England, with her cheap labor and her 

 mines of coal and iron near the sea-shore, a 

 greater advantage than we had when wood 

 was the only material of which vessels were 

 built. 



" 2. The adoption in 1854 of the policy of 

 removing every burden from and giving every 

 possible advantage to her merchantmen, coup- 

 led with liberal appropriations in the form of 

 postal pay, as well as subsidies, to secure the 

 establishment of steamship lines to all parts f 

 the world; while at the same time the Ameri- 

 can Government neither lifted a burden nor 

 offered any encouragement to her marine. 



" It was not until 1855-'56 that these causes 

 began to exert a marked influence and to 

 change the current of the foreign carrying- 



