234 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (AMERICAN SHIPPING.) 



should be willing to abolish if five sixths of it 

 did not fall on foreign vessels. 



"The committee believed that we might 

 use this tax in the way of building up our own 

 commercial marine, so as to enable our ship- 

 builders to use American materials, by giving 

 them a drawback to the amount of the duty, 

 at the same time giving builders the privilege 

 of importing materials in bond duty free. We 

 were thus for placing home materials and for- 

 eign materials on substantially the same plat- 

 form, and giving the ship-builder or rather the 

 ship-owner, for the drawback goes to the origi- 

 nal owner of a vessel, the choice of American 

 or foreign materials, without discriminating 

 against home materials. 



"The committee believed that this pro- 

 vision, without taking any money from the 

 Treasury, which comes from ordinary sources 

 of revenue, and giving the ship-owner the ad- 

 vantage of importing in bond materials duty 

 free from foreign countries, or of using home 

 materials, would be likely to build up iron-ship 

 building in this country, and revive the Amer- 

 ican foreign carrying-trade. Such was the 

 opinion of the San Francisco Board of Trade, 

 which proposed the plan, and such is the 

 opinion of the New York maritime associa 

 tions and ship-owners of experience. 



" A million and a half of dollars annually 

 comes from the tonnage-tax, and in the next 

 five years the tax will amount in the aggregate 

 to ten millions of dollars. It is a tax five 

 sixths of which is paid by foreign vessels, and 

 which we may properly use to encourage the 

 development of the American merchant ma- 

 rine. 



"It is true that the Government of Great 

 Britain, as a government, does not impose 

 what is called a tonnage-tax, but it imposes 

 a light-dues tax, which, as I have said, is really 

 a tonnage-tax. More than this ; in the case of 

 a large proportion of the cities of Great Britain 

 having harbors or rivers capable of improve- 

 ment, the corporation of the city is authorized 

 to impose a tax upon all tonnage that may en- 

 ter the port, for the purpose of paying the ex- 

 penses of such river or harbor improvements. 



" Take, for instance, the river Clyde, which 

 was originally but a brook, so to speak. The 

 corporation of Glasgow was authorized to 

 deepen' and widen the channel of that river 

 and to build docks, with the view of fitting 

 that river to be the center of the iron-ship yard 

 system of the world. The corporation of 

 Glasgow is authorized to impose upon every 

 vessel entering the port a tonnage-tax for the 

 purpose of defraying the expense of improv- 

 ing the river. American vessels entering the 

 Clyde to-day pay to the corporation of Glas- 

 gow a tax which is used to defray the expenses 

 of deepening and widening the river and pre- 

 paring it not only for navigation but also for 

 the iron-ship yard center of the world. 



" Gentlemen may say that Great Britain 

 herself has not done this ; but the Government 



of Great Britain has authorized the corporation 

 of Glasgow to do this work to widen and 

 deepen the channel of the river and to build 

 dock-yards; the Government of Great Britain 

 has authorized the imposition of a tonnage- tax 

 upon American as well as other vessels enter- 

 ing that port, for the purpose of defraying the 

 expenses of improving that river. Yet gen- 

 tlemen sometimes tell us that Great Britain has 

 not aided in all these enterprises; that she has 

 let her shipping severely alone, allowing her 

 own local communities even to deepen and 

 widen her rivers. But, in point of fact, Great 

 Britain has authorized her municipal corpora- 

 tions to do what she has not done herself to 

 collect from the merchant marine of the world 

 a tonnage-tax to pay the expenses of river and 

 harbor improvements. What she has done 

 through her city corporations she has to all in- 

 tents and purposes done for herself. 



" Now, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me wise 

 that Congress, imposing as it does a tonnage- 

 tax which, if circumstances permitted, we 

 should be glad to abolish, should take the 

 amount -of this tax and devote it, not to the 

 widening or deepening of any river with the 

 view of building up commerce and furnishing 

 facilities for ship-yards, but indirectly expend 

 it for the purpose of enabling the people of our 

 country to build their own vessels, while at 

 the same time we establish our merchant ma- 

 rine so that we shall not be dependent upon 

 the other nations of the world. It seems to 

 me that this may be done without taking a 

 single dollar of the revenue that may be de- 

 rived from any of the ordinary sources of tax- 

 ation. And it may be limited, if you please, 

 to the amount which may be collected from 

 the tonnage-tax, because if the mode of col- 

 lecting the tax be changed to "the English sys- 

 tem of a tax on each entry, instead of one mill- 

 ion and a half we would have two million 

 dollars and over. Thus we shall imitate the 

 policy of Great Britain in principle, however 

 different may be the application. 



"I wish simply to say in conclusion that 

 this is more than a local question. It is not a 

 question of building up a ship-yard here and 

 there. It is not alone a question of building 

 up even a most beneficent industry in our 

 country. It is more than that, it is a national 

 question which reaches every part of this coun- 

 try. The great West is interested in this ques- 

 tion if possible more than any other part of the 

 Union, because so large a portion of our ex- 

 ports is produced there. It is indispensable to 

 her that there should be an American mer- 

 chant marine, not simply to compete with a 

 foreign merchant marine, but an American 

 merchant marine upon which we may rely in 

 time of war. It is more even than that. It is 

 a question of national safety. While Great 

 Britain to-day is doing all she can to develop 

 her iron-ship yards, while she is building 81 

 per cent, of all her war-vessels and war-engines 

 in private iron and steel-ship yards, why should 



