ITS CAUSE AND REMEDY 21 



been wiped out of existence because our 

 statesmen failed to protect it and American 

 ship owners have become citizens of France 

 and are building up the French merchant 

 marine under the protection of the French 

 ship subsidy. Twenty years ago only an 

 occasional French ship came here, all were 

 British bottoms. Several times this winter 

 the majority of the ships en route and here 

 were flying the French flag and instead of 

 breaking up the French nation they have 

 become the bankers of the world. If ships 

 and agriculture were to receive the same 

 protection that iron and steel does, the 

 wealth of our great nation would be in- 

 creased billions of dollars and the farmer 

 instead of being scoffed at, a shrivelled so- 

 cially, shunned creature, would expand into 

 a cultured and much sought after compan- 

 ion. It would bring us beautiful cities and 

 rural districts and instead of exhausting 

 our wealth would make it more productive. 

 When we were in the throes of a panic in 

 the nineties through the low price of farm 

 products, the Hawaiian Islands under the 

 blessings of reciprocity with the United 

 States and consequently having the benefit 

 of protected sugar, sugar stock was selling 

 300 above par and the Hawaiians were able 

 to place 75 to 100 dollars' worth of our fer- 

 tilizers on one acre of land at one applica- 

 tion, at the same time the American farmer 

 could not afford to use 15c worth. 



