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The National Geographic Magazine 



tors in business we cannot reasonably 

 look for any improvement. It is onlv 

 reasonable to expect that European 

 steamship lines shall be so managed as to 

 promote European trade in South Amer- 

 ica rather than to promote the trade of 

 the United States in South America. 



This woeful deficiency in the means to 

 carry on and enlarge our South American 

 trade is but a part of the general decline 

 and feebleness of the American merchant 

 marine, which has reduced us from car- 

 rying over ninety per cent of our export 

 trade in our own ships to the carriage of 

 nine per cent of that trade in our own 

 ships and dependence upon foreign ship- 

 owners for the carriage of ninety-one per 

 cent. The true remedy and the only 

 remedy is the establishment of American 

 lines of steamships between the United 

 States and the great ports of South 

 America adequate to render fully as good 

 service as is now afforded by the Euro- 

 pean lines between those ports and Eu- 

 rope. The substantial underlying fact 

 was well stated in the resolution of this 

 Trans-Mississippi Congress three years 

 ago: 



"That every ship is a missionary of 

 trade ; that steamship lines work for their 

 own countries just as railroad lines work 

 for their terminal points, and that it is 

 as absurd for the United States to depend 

 upon foreign ships to distribute its pro- 

 ducts as it would be for a department 

 store to depend upon wagons of a com- 

 peting house to deliver its goods." 



How can this defect be remedied ? The 

 answer to this question must be found by 

 ascertaining the cause of the decline of 

 our merchant marine. Why is it that 

 Americans have substantially retired from 

 the foreign transport service? We are a 

 nation of maritime traditions and facility ; 

 we are a nation of constructive capacity, 

 competent to build ships ; we are emi- 

 nent, if not preeminent, in the construc- 

 tion of machinery; we have abundant 

 capital seeking investment ; we have cour- 

 age and enterprise, shrinking from no 

 competition in any field which we choose 

 to enter. Why, then, have we retired 



from this field, in which we were once 

 conspicuously successful ? 



I think the answer is twofold. 



THE AMERICAN SAILORS RIGHTFULLY DE- 

 MAND THE AMERICAN SCALE OE LIV- 

 ING 



1. The higher wages and the greater 

 cost of maintenance of American officers 

 and crews make it impossible to compete 

 on equal terms with foreign ships. The 

 scale of living and the scale of pay of 

 American sailors are fixed by the stand- 

 ard of wages and of living in the United 

 States, and those are maintained at a 

 high level by the protective tariff. The 

 moment the American passes beyond the 

 limits of his country and engages in ocean 

 transportation he comes into competition 

 with the lower foreign scale of wages and 

 of living. Mr Joseph L. Bristow in his 

 report upon trade conditions affecting the 

 Panama Railroad, dated June 14, 1905, 

 gives in detail the cost of operating an 

 American steamship with a tonnage of 

 approximately thirty-five hundred tons 

 as compared with the cost of operating 

 a specified German steamship of the same 

 tonnage, and the differences aggregate 

 $15)315 per annum greater cost for the 

 American steamship than for the German, 

 that is $4.37 per ton. He gives also in 

 detail the cost of maintaining another 

 American steamship with a tonnage of 

 approximately twenty-five hundred tons 

 as compared with the cost of operating a 

 specified British steamship of the same 

 tonnage, and the differences aggregate 

 $18,289.68 per annum greater cost for the 

 American steamship than for the British, 

 that is $7.31 per ton. It is manifest that 

 if the German steamship were content 

 with a profit of less than $15,000 per 

 annum, and the British with a profit >f 

 less than $18,000 per annum, the Ameri- 

 can ships would have to go out of busi- 

 ness. 



2. The principal maritime nations of 

 the world, anxious to develop their trade, 

 to promote their shipbuilding industry, to 

 have at hand transports and auxiliary 

 cruisers in case of war, are fostering their 



