The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-21 00:00:00

sentence pronounced on the passengers and crew of
the Hibernia, many, to an agonizing death—all to
great loss and suffering—might first have been pre-
vented ; next, mitigated. A water-tight bulk head
near the sternposts where such an accident is likely
to occur would have saved the ship from sinking ;
and where passengers hate to take to boats, STONER'S
Life-preserving Apparatus is the true resource—the
old plan which worked so badly in the case of
the Hibernia being really obsolete, for though these
boats answer for harbour purposes, they are next to
worthless at sea for saving a crew.

THE FOREIGN CARRYING ?RADE OF

AMERICA.

We have to thank the Hon. FRIEMAN H. MoRSE,
United States Consul at Loudon, for a copy of his
Report on the Mercantile Marine and Commercial
Policy of Great Britain, to which we alluded in our
last issue, though we confine our remarks to its
bearing on the United States. This paper, dated
Jan. 1, 1868, was furnished to Congress in answer
to a resolution of the House of Representatives, and
ordered to be published. The statistics have been
gathered with great industry, and the remarks are
conceived in a fair spirit, the conclusions being
justified by the facts submitted. Although Mr.
MORSE is evidently impressed with the effect on the
shipbuilding of his country—of the change in ma-
terial from wood to iron—yet he attributes the
marked decline to the privateers, " which should
have been outlawed by all maritime States instead
of being protected by some of the most powerful.'
The total tonnage of all maritime nations, sail and
steam, he estimates in 1861 to have been 17,235,949,
of which 5,539,813 belonged to the United States,
5,895,369 to Great Britain, and 5,800,767 to all
other nations. This showed the English to own
rather more than athird, the United Statesrather less
than a third, and all other maritime nations about a
third. The United States employed 2,642,683 of their
tonnage in international traffic, and Great Britain
3,179,628: In 1865, although the coasting ton-
nage of the American marine had considerably in-
creased, the registered tonnage employed in the in-
ternational trade had fallen to 1,602,525, being a
loss of 10 per cent., which Mr. MORSE attributes,
mainly to the devastation of the privateers. In
the same period the British tonnage engaged in the
foreign carrying trade had increased to 4,500,000,
and this disproportion continues and even increases
to this date. It is interesting to trace in this able
paper the rise, the cause and the course of the Ameri-
can Foreign Carrying Trade, and the action thereon
of the Confederate cruisers. The exports of the
United States prior to the war gave more employ-
ment to shipping than those of any other nation,
being mainly composed of the raw, bulky materials,
cotton, grain, provisions, lumber, &c. It is clear
that the vessels employed in their transport from
the States could not all receive return cargoes, con-
sidering, that what other nations exchanged were
for the most part costly manufactures, small in
bulk. The ships then sought employment from
foreign port to foreign port, and were often thus
profitably engaged for years before they returned to
the United States. The average annual export taken
for the period between 1856 to 1860 of cotton,tobacco,
rice, flour, wheat, corn meal, &c., aggregated
1,200,000 tons, calculated to be a seventh of the
bulk carried in international sea traffic. Allowing
1,000,000 tons of this to American vessels, there
would be left 1,645,628 tons for employment in
the Foreign Carrying Trade, transporting cargoes
"from foreign ports to foreign ports, for foreigners;
to be used by foreigners." At that time American
ships were preferred, British merchants often select-
ing them for employment between ports of the British
Empire, for they were celebrated for their beauty
of model and construction, and their consequent
s tiling qualities, and for the order in which they
delivered cargoes. The ships of the Union then
bore the American flag to all climes and nations.
At sea it was everywhere met, and generally flying
over a craft of remarkably fine construction.
Whenever a vessel passed another in an ocean
race it was the Stars and Stripes that floated from
the gaff of the swifter, and this marked superiority
spread everywhere the prestige of the Republic.
Mr. MoRSE considers that in conceding to the Con.
federates the belligerent rights of the sea, when
they had not a solitary war ship afloat, in dock, or
in process of construction, the great blow was
dealt to the American Carrying Trade. Commerce
is very sensitive, and although the United States
could protect its coasting trade, after extra
1 risks were thrown on its international trade, it

rapidly sank. " From the appearance of the
first corsair in pursuit of their ships, Ame-
rican merchants had to ply not only the marine
but the war risk on their ships. After the burn-
ing of one or two with their neutral cargoes the
shipowner had to pay the war risk on the cargo as
well, and even then neutral vessels were preferred."
Nothing remained but to take such profitless busi-
ness as offered, or dock the ships, with the conse-
quent expense and deterioration, or sell them out-
right, or put them under foreign flags for protec •
tion. Besides those destroyed by the privateers
many were sold to foreigners, and when sales could
no longer be effected, except at great sacrifice,
numbers were placed under foreign flags. At the
end of the war the diminution already noticed had
taken place, while cven the export and import car-
rying trade of the Union was fast passing to fo-
reigners, a transfer aided by a heavy tax on all the
materials for constructing ships, which threw an
additional burden ou the American shipbuilder i❑
favour of the foreign competitor. After remarks
which we have thus summarized, Mr. MORSE
touches on the subject of the application of iron to
the construction of ships, and the substitution of
steam vessels for freight as well as for the passen-

ger trade. The remark with which he prefaces this
portion of his Report leads us to believe that he
agrees in no small measure with the cause we lately
advanced for the decline, for he says :—" But while
the rebellion was the direct and sole cause of our
present restricted commercial position, it is well
we should now understand and keep in mind the
fact that there were causes at work which lay fur-
ther back, imperceptible to many, yet surely
at workbefore Southern discontent had ripenediuto
rebellion, and which even now are more seriously
felt than is supposed, and which will in time, if we
do not prepare to meet them, have a more enduring
effect on our mercantile marine than even the pira-
tical cruisers which the rebellion brought forth."
In our opinion, Mr. MORSE attaches too much
weight to the work of the cruisers and to the tre-
mendous efforts of Great Britain to maintain mari-
time supremacy. To these he gives the first place,
and next to the change from wood to iron, and
from sails to steam, in accounting for the rise of
England's mercantile marine and the decadence of
that of America. Doubtless the Navigation Laws
of the United States told against the nation and
aided the Confederate cruisers, for there was
nothing of pliability in them, nothing whereby a
shipowner could secure himself against the temp
porary derangement caused by the piratical attacks.
Those who, unable to sell their vessels to foreigners,
transferred them to the protection of a foreign
flag, were denounced, as far as we can recollect a
late debate in Congress, as little better than trai-
tors, while they were prohibited from replacing
those vessels on the register of American ships.
Crude false notions, such as dictated this, pre-
vented the revival of the American Carrying Trade,
combined with the change of material in construc-
tion and the propulsion of ships. It is evident that
Mr. MORSE would modify the laws of the United
States which affect the building and register of
vessels. He would remove all imposts on materials
for the construction of ships, and more especially,
to encourage the building of iron vessels he would
annul all taxes on iron plates, on the pines of the
frames for iron ships, ;whether rolled into angle
iron or other parts ; indeed on every kind of
iron necessary to complete the vessel, which
now, it must be remembered, is often metallic
from the keel at least to the cross-trees, masts and
standing rigging, as well as hull. Even more neces-
sary„ in our opinion, as regards immediate value,
is a measure also advocated by the Consul, and
one we have long urged—that American citizens be
permitted to purchase foreign-built steamers. Our
English readers perhaps may not be aware that
such vessels cannot be placed on the national re-