June 18, 1886.] 



SCIEXCE. 



541 



powers have attained the largest growth which is 

 possible to them. This means any thing rather 

 than equality. It means the richest diversity for 

 differentiation accompanies development. It is 

 simply the Christian doctrine of talents committed 

 to men, all to be improved, whether the individual 

 gift be one talent, two, five, or ten talents. The 

 categorical imperative of duty enforces upon each 

 rational being perfection after his kind." 



The school of non-interference claims, that, as 

 a general rule, these ends are best attained by 

 giving the adult individual the widest liberty 

 within the limits prescribed by considerations of 

 public health and morality. 



After following the discussion so far upon the 

 lines it has already taken, I deem it right to 

 bring out in strong relief what is the real gist of 

 the question. What advocates of non-interven- 

 tion by government base their policy upon, is 

 neither an abstract theory of society, nor a sys- 

 tem of ethics, but a practical business view of 

 things. As matters now stand, government ought 

 not to interfere, for the simple reason that the 

 policy and acts to which it would be led are not 

 founded on sound business principles. I have 

 myself been a careful student of the treatment 

 of economic questions in congress during the past 

 thirty years ; and the general outcome of all I 

 have seen is, that, leaving out legislation on well- 

 marked lines for the supply of obvious public 

 necessities, no really wise economic legislation 

 by congress is attainable. Congress is not, and in 

 our time cannot become, a body of investigators or 

 theorists. Within a certain field I regard congress 

 as an excellent representative of the wisdom of 

 the nation ; but it goes outside of that field when 

 it considers economic theories. It then becomes 

 the representative of the time-honored fallacies 

 of the people rather than of their wisdom. If 

 any one doubts this, he has only to look upon a 

 few shining examples now before us. 



The nation at large looks with regret upon the 

 decline of American shipping, which has been 

 going on ever since the civil war, and earnestly 

 desires that we should have a mercantile fleet sail- 

 ing the ocean under the American flag. Now, 

 what measures have our legislators taken to bring 

 about this result ? They are in their main features 

 as follows : — 



First, that no American owner of a ship shall 

 be allowed to sail her under the American flag 

 unless she was built in the United States. 



Second, that no person shall be allowed to build 

 a ship within the United States unless he pays a 

 heavy penalty, called customs duty, on all the 

 machinery and raw material which he may find it 

 advantageous or necessary to import for the pur- 



pose. In the case of a large ship-yard, tins penalty 

 may amount to hundreds of thousands if not a 

 million of dollars. Possibly no one in the United 

 States would make the machinery on any terms 

 whatever, and possibly some of the material may 

 be monopolized by a single company or combina- 

 tion ; but the penalty is exacted without regard 

 to circumstances. 



Third, that, after the ship is built, its running 

 shall be subject to certain restrictions, of so onerous 

 a character, that after paying all the penalties, 

 and going to all the labor of building the ship, the 

 owner will run her at a loss when he could make 

 a profit by sailing her under a foreign flag. 



In brief, our legislation has thrown positive ob- 

 structions in the way of any ship being run under 

 the American flag. The only remedy that the 

 promoters of this legislation have offered us is that 

 of hiring American shippers by heavy subsidies to 

 overcome the obstacles which we have thrown in 

 their way. Everybody who chooses to look into 

 the subject can see that, in order to secure 

 an American mercantile marine, all we have to 

 do is to repeal all law r s throwing obstructions in 

 the way of Americans building, owning, and sail- 

 ing ships, thus allowing every American citizen to 

 get his ship where he pleases, to build her as he 

 pleases without interference from customs au- 

 thorities, and to sail her without vexatious regula- 

 tions. 



The proof of this is afforded by the fact of own- 

 ership of foreign lines by American companies at 

 the present time. For example : the well-known 

 Red Star line between New York and Antwerp, 

 which the reader constantly sees advertised in the 

 New York papers as sailing under the Belgian flag, 

 is really owned and managed by an American com- 

 pany. This company calls its ships Belgian, and 

 sails them under the Belgian flag, simply because 

 our laws do not allow them to sail under the Ameri- 

 can flag. The same thing is partially true of the 

 well-known Inman line between New York and 

 Liverpool, and, to a less extent, of the Guion line. 

 I cannot speak accurately on the subject of these 

 last two lines, but my impression is that American 

 enterprise is gradually getting possession of them. 



I wish very much Science would induce our 

 new school of economists to give their frank opin- 

 ion of this policy. They might at the same time 

 tell us what they think of the economic soundness 

 of the principles on which the oleomargarine bill 

 was sustained. I refer more particularly to the 

 doctrine that it would be a great public calamity 

 if the public of this country were allowed to get 

 their butter for seven cents a pound, because then 

 all the dairies would have to stop business. The 

 total failure of congress not only to remedy the 



