, 1870-05-12
THE SUBSIDY BUSINESS.

/: THE report now comes from Washington
that the sub-conmitte Of the Committee on
the Revival of Commerce have agreed to
pdopt, as part Of their schene, the PROPOSE
lion OF Mr., washbu1n, of Wisconsin, TO
s,,bsidize five lines Of ocean steamers, VIZ: :
i. Boston and Portland to Glasgow and liy-
anool; .. New York to Liverpool g. Phil
adelphia and Baltimore to southampton
and Bremen !. New Orleans to Bremen;
i. New Orleans to Rio Janeiro. The allow
ance to each OF these lines is 373o,ooO
wear, or, in the aggregate, $3.50, ,ooo,
ior the interest on SG9, 500,0 900. slr. WASH
bum and the subcommittee propose, prae-
hcal1y, that the United States shau odd for,
ten or twelve Eyears, So, $500, 600 To- its
?inte1est-benring debt, and that, too, with
out the slightest consideration OF equiya-
i'lent These steamships are nominally
hired to carry the mails, but the rnaiis are
| uow carried without charge to the govern
|: ment,-so that pretence is fraud.
I This scheme is but an offer on the part
Of the United States to pay, the interest for
ten or twenty years on q loan OF
| S62, 900, 600, made by these steamship COM
I panie1to enable them to build steamships
Building steamships will not make COM
/ merce, It is but few years since the
Cunsrd line Withdrew its steamers from
Boston and transferred them to New York,
| because there Was no freight Offering at the
former place. IF the Cuna1d line could not
afford to run from Boston when it had
| mouopoly of thu trade, how is an Am arlcan
J steamer to pay its expenses on the
| game or less buainess? There is line OF
/ steamers now running from Bai1mtIe to
Bremen, which is doing an Indifferent bust
ness. How is IN additional line to be made
! profitable where the old one can hardly
live? There was line of steamers be-
tween Philadelphia and Glasgow once, but
it could not get enough business to keep
the boats in repair, and such Of the steam
ers as did not 70 to the bottom, were
taken oil and put on some other route.
There Is now regular semi-monthly line OF
steamers between New Orleans and BEe-
| men rio Havana and Southampton, and an
other regular line between New Orleans and
Liverpool It is supposed that, while these
lines arg doing comparatively
( Email business, another line is
| so much needed that Congress must
hasten to appropriate s75o,ooo. year for
ten years to support it All the money in
the Treasury would not take foreign COM
merce to Philadelphia, and yet, in order to
carr this enormous job through, an nppro-
nr;ation for line at that port is necessary.
We already pay $500, 600 q year. to
snnnort a limo from San Francisco 10
China and Japan, and We pay $50, 600 q
year to support line to Brazil and s75, ,oo9
! a vear for line from California to the
! Sandwich Islands. Now it is proposed to
ada five other subsidies, OF S75o, 1000 each,
| to establish lines in ports where foreign
trade has utterly failed to support hne' or
where the business is being done efficiently
without subsidies- One Of these proposed
lines is between Liverpool and New York,
md this is to run in competition with Elk or
eight established lines, whose steamers nave
been built for one-third less than like steam
ers cost in this country
To the great body of the people, outside
and beyond the lobby which 1ntcsts tne
| halls Of Congress, and swarms upon every
avenue to the National Treasury, it IS only
J necessary to state the proposition to invoke ,'
an immediate and universal condemnation
| of It. The prete1t upon which this bill u
urged is that, in consequence Of the e1ces-
! siye taxation On iron, wood, eordage, can
vas, machinery, and MI things entering into
the building Of ships and steamerS' no aron
OF wooden vessels are now built IN the
/ United States. It is conceded that
I to remove these taxes would have
\ the effect Of reviYing ship-buddlng s.,
particularly iron steamships. The commit
i tee. however, refuse to remove the taxes,
i but they propose to pay each person out OF
II the Treasury certain SUN per ton for each
! ship they may build, md pay it regular
annual allowance per ton while it Is afoat-
This is the proposition which our ta1 in
ventors at Washington Offer to revive thu
! industry which they coucede thoy hAvo
taxed out of existence, In addition ia