CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMEEICAN SHIPPING.) 



American vessels, long ago treaties entered 

 into at a time when wooden sailing-vessels 

 enabled us to control the ocean, have prevent- 

 ed us from making any arrangement or giving 

 any preference to American vessels over ves- 

 sels of foreign nations. 



"Consequently we are in this difficulty in 

 respect to the tonnage-tax. If we abolish the 

 tax as to American vessels, by that very act 

 we abolish it as to foreign vessels. We can 

 not take a single step in the direction of en- 

 deavoring to protect our own vessels by direct 

 legislation, without giving the same advantage 

 to the foreign vessels that come into competi- 

 tion with them. While giving every other in- 

 terest in the country the benefit of the protec- 

 tion of either a high or a low tariff, we com- 

 pel our vessels engaged in the foreign trade to 

 go out upon the highway of the ocean and 

 meet the open competition of other nations. 



"Of course it is too late for us to go back 

 now on the policy of maritime reciprocity, 

 which was adopted in the days when we could 

 control the ocean. We have to devise reme- 

 dies in spite of these difficulties. 



"There are two things that must be done if 

 we are to revive the American foreign carry- 

 ing-trade. What are they? First, we must 

 by our legislation or otherwise make it possi- 

 ble for a vessel floating the American flag to 

 carry our exports and imports as cheaply as 

 the vessel of any other nation can do. The 

 nation which will do the carrying-trade of the 

 world the most efficiently and cheaply will se- 

 cure it, and in securing it will control the ocean. 



" Then, after we have done that, we must 

 also make it possible for an American ship- 

 owner or would-be ship-owner to obtain ves- 

 sels for his trade at no higher cost to him than 

 to our foreign competitors. I need not argue 

 those two propositions; they are self-evident. 

 The problem for us to solve, therefore, is how 

 to do these two things. 



" First, as to the running of vessels after they 

 are built ; for obviously there can be no useful 

 end attained by any policy to secure cheap ves- 

 sels to American ship-owners or would-be ship- 

 owners unless after they obtain those vessels 

 they can run them as cheaply as our English 

 rivals. 



" Now, some one has said not in the course 

 of this debate, but it has been said that there 

 was no difficulty in that direction. I wish to 

 say, Mr. Speaker, that the greatest difficulties 

 lie right here. And yet the difficulties are such 

 that they can be not entirely but largely over- 

 come by legislation. 



" I wish to cite as proof that there is diffi- 

 culty here this simple fact : for ten years we 

 have been enabled to build first-class wooden 

 vessels as cheaply as any other nation in the 

 world, quality for quality. In my own State 

 of Maine, and even in the' district which I rep- 

 resent, during the last year over 40,000 tons of 

 wooden vessels, the finest ever constructed, 

 were euccessfully built. To be sure, a large 



portion of those vessels were for the coast- 

 wise trade ; but some of them were for the for- 

 eign trade. 



" The fact has developed itself unmistakably 

 that the only reason we do not extend that 

 trade further, that we do not build more wooden 

 vessels for the foreign trade, is that after we 

 have built them we can not run them as cheaply 

 as our foreign competitors. 



" Why not ? It has been said that the ques- 

 tion of wages of seamen is one that meets us 

 here and can not be overcome. I wish to show 

 you, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen, that in the 

 foreign carrying-trade the question of wages, 

 especially as to sailing-vessels, is not one that 

 seriously interferes with us. And why? The 

 American vessel engaged in the foreign carry- 

 ing-trade a large proportion of the time is in 

 foreign ports, and so has the privilege of en- 

 gaging her seamen at any pert she may visit. It 

 may be that in shipping men at San Francisco 

 and New York there is a slight discrimination 

 not much, by-the-way because from the na- 

 ture of the case, competing upon the ocean on 

 the same platform, wages of seamen have been 

 brought down to a common standard. The 

 difference in price between the wages of sea- 

 men in New York and Liverpool is trifling. 

 Practically, with the liberty which a vessel has 

 when it enters a foreign port to ship a new 

 crew, it may be said that so far as sailing-ves- 

 sels are concerned this is not an element that 

 enters seriously into the question. 



" So far as steamships are concerned, which 

 from the very nature of the trade require a 

 permanent crew, there is some difficulty, but 

 not enough to seriously interfere with the ex- 

 tension of our foreign carrying-trade. 



"Then, what are the difficulties in the way? 

 I may say to you, Mr. Speaker, that they are 

 largely difficulties which legislation has erected 

 or may remove. I wish to call attention to 

 some of those difficulties, difficulties which this 

 bill, unanimously reported by both the Joint 

 Select Committee on Shipping and the Com- 

 mittee on Commerce, has sought to remove. 



" When the committee came to consider the 

 problem of how to build iron vessels under 

 such a condition of facts, there was one prin- 

 ciple which they unanimously accepted, and 

 that was that no policy having reference to 

 the supply of iron steamships to revive the 

 American foreign trade would be wise or suc- 

 cessful unless it looked to the building, ulti- 

 mately at least, of iron steamships in our own 

 country. There was no difference of opinion 

 on that point. All said we must look to that 

 result, and that any policy which could not 

 accomplish this would be a fatal one fatal, 

 first, because all history proves that no com- 

 mercial state ever maintained its supremacy on 

 the ocean unless it built its own vessels as well 

 as sailed them ; and, secondly, because in time 

 of peace no nation could maintain its commer- 

 cial independence unless it had the facilities 

 within its own grasp and its own control for 



