CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMERICAN SHIPPING.) 



233 



shipping its own merchandise. Suppose a war 

 to-day should break out in Europe, and Eng- 

 land should engage in conflict with a country 

 able to put cruisers upon the sea privateers, it 

 may be when 85 per cent, of the produce of 

 the West is being shipped in foreign, mainly 

 in English vessels in such an event all the 

 produce of the West shipped in English vessels 

 would be liable to seizure and confiscation by 

 the power engaged in war with Great Britain. 

 Therefore, I say in such a case as that, the 

 American people, and particularly the people of 

 the West, would suffer more than the belliger- 

 ents themselves. 



" Again, thirdly, no policy is wise or safe 

 which contemplates resorting to foreign coun- 

 tries for the purpose of obtaining our ships for 

 our American marine, because no nation can 

 maintain its independence and defend itself in 

 time of war unless it is able to improvise and 

 build its own vessels. Consider for a moment 

 in what situation we should have been placed 

 in 1862 if we had been obliged to send to Eng- 

 land to have the little Monitor built for us. 

 What would have become of our ports, of 

 which the gentleman from New York (Mr. 

 Hewitt) spoke so eloquently the other day, if 

 at the breaking out of the war we had been 

 obliged to resort to the nation which tried to 

 crush us ? For it must be borne in mind that 

 the mercantile marine is the militia of the sea, 

 occupying the same position on the ocean that 

 the State militia do on the land. No nation 

 ever maintained its power upon the ocean un- 

 less it had a commercial marine of its own. 

 Therefore I say to you that it is more than a 

 question of business, more than a question of 

 whether we shall have a part of this carrying- 

 trade. It is a question of whether the nation 

 shall be able to defend itself; it is a question 

 of national security and national independence. 



u .No policy, therefore, that looks to making 

 this nation dependent upon a foreign nation, 

 upon a nation like England, for the supply of 

 vessels for its merchant marine can be wise or 

 safe. 



" This to my mind is the serious objection 

 to the proposition of the gentleman from New 

 York (Mr. Cox) to authorize the purchase and 

 American registration of foreign-built ships. 

 Such a policy can not develop iron-ship build- 

 ing here, for the simple reason that it is impos- 

 sible for any ship-builder to pay 60 per cent, 

 more for labor here and build ships in close 

 competition with the Clyde. There can be 

 only one way in which our builders could hope 

 to compete on the free-ship basis, and that is 

 by cutting down the wages of our laborers 60 

 per cent. This is simply impossible. 



'Therefore I say that the free- ship plan can 

 not develop iron-ship building in this country." 

 It could do it in Germany, where wages are as 

 low as in England, or lower, but it could not 

 do it in the United States, with our wages for 

 labor. It may as well be said first as last that 

 the free-ship plan would be practically a de- 



cision to give up the attempt to build our own 

 vessels. 



" That provision of our navigation laws which 

 restricts the right of American registry to ves- 

 sels built in this country was not the narrow, 

 unstatesmanlike, and unwise legislation which 

 the gentleman from New York represents it to 

 be. It was enacted at the very foundation of 

 the Government, in response to the following 

 suggestion of Washington to Congress : 



" We should not overlook the tendency of a war, 

 and even preparations for a war, among the nations 

 most concerned in active commerce with, this country 

 to abridge the means and thereby at last enhance the 

 price of transporting its valuable productions to their 



contingencies by such encouragement to our own 

 navigation as will render pur commerce and agricult- 

 ure less dependent on foreign nations. Washington's 

 Second Annual Address, December 8, 1790. 



" Those laws have stood from that day to 

 this. They have come down to us with the 

 official approval of Washington himself. They 

 come to us with the indorsement of Jefferson, 

 of Adams, of Madison, of Monroe, of all the 

 fathers of the republic. They come to us in 

 this shape because the fathers of the republic 

 said we could not successfully defend ourselves 

 unless we built up a merchant marine con- 

 structed in our own country. 



" Two lines of policy were considered by the 

 committee, both of which looked to making it 

 feasible to build our ships at home. One policy 

 proposed, and that which I think all the mem- 

 bers of the committee would be willing to ac- 

 cept as a complement to the section which has 

 been reported, is to provide that materials ad- 

 vanced to the point of bars, angles, rods, etc., 

 may be imported in bond duty free when they 

 are to be used in the construction of vessels for 

 the foreign trade. 



u But the committee were conscious that 

 with a free-material clause standing alone, 

 with 3,000 miles of ocean between us and 

 England, it would not be wise to make us en- 

 tirely dependent upon England for the mate- 

 rials for the construction of our ships. We 

 believe there should be coupled with a plan of 

 that kind some provision which would enable 

 our builders to use materials produced in this 

 country by American workmen at higher-cost 

 labor. 



" The committee recommend the adoption of 

 a section providing for the importation of ma- 

 terials from foreign countries duty free, and 

 another section providing for a drawback, so 

 called, whenever the materials used are of 

 American production, a drawback to the ex- 

 tent of the duty on the foreign material of the 

 same kind. This drawback would practically 

 cover the difference between the cost of build- 

 ing an iron steamship in this country and in 

 England, which is about 30 per cent. This 

 drawback would practically come from the 

 tonnage-tax, which, as I have already said, we 



