Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1870-03-31
AMERICAN SHIPS-THE "IFORLD''
A PIRATE.

A PIRATE.
The New York World in its issue of last |
Saturday has labored article in which it at
tempts to ridicule President Grant, and, at
the same time, obeys the behest of that col
ony of foreign squatters on American soil
the New York Chamber of Commerce.
The article is severe attack on the Pres |
ident's special message on the shipping |
interests, and on the bills the message so
wisely commends to the favorable considera-
ton Of Congress. 1t abounds in misstate-
ments and positive false-hoods, and only |
serves to demonstrate the Ignorance or
rccklessness of the paper, and YET, lit has jusi
enough Of truth in it to give an air Of plaus
Utility to the arguments based on its manufac-
,ured facts.
1t declares that or ocean tonnage has
been taken away from US because ships
'.can be built abroad for about halt the cost
+" Of building them in this country. This
'sdoes not destroy our coasting trade, be-
'scause our laws shut out foreign com
.'petition." Again it declares that the
g foreign ship-owner, getting his vessels at
iahout half the cost OF ours, underbids US,
and would take the whole business if we
'haye not still remaining some ships built
in cheaper era The statement that
ships can be built abroad for half what they
cost in this country is untrue. They can
he built more cheaply, but not at one
half our prices, as the World prelcnds.
Ships ca7a be built more cheaply there, and
this is precisely what the bills assailed are
designed to remedy. The talk about some
ships built in a cheaper era, still remain
ing, is absurd. There arc no such ships fit
for ocean service. The vessels Of the Col
Inns line and those owned by Vanderbilt and
others, which were in ocean service before
the war, were all wooden side-wheel ships,
and ara al present unseaworthy. Their
owners recognizing the fact, OF which the
English owners have for a long time beer
cognizant, that side wheel ships canno
under any circumstances compete success
fully with iron propellers, for ocean SERVICE
had been for sometime endeayGiing to MAKE
arrangements for transferring their ma
chinery to new iron hulls, with view /,
putting them into that extensive and i'm
portant coastwise trade, which the Worth
admits that our navigation laws have pro
tected from destruction The passage {
the laws now pending is all that is needle
to enable owners Of these vessels 10 max
The arrangement desired.
After reiterating the truism that America
ships cannot be built for the foreign trad
g because their greater cost would render
9 impossible to sail them will profit"
goes on to show that after the class Of We!
sells, which we have shown docs not exis
wears out, that The whole ocean tonnag,
except that Of the coasting trade, will pa,
away from us. II is scarcely worth viii
for the World to prophesy those thirgs Iii
have already come to pass Thanks to /
southern friends and their English allie
whom 1t now serves, America has no ocea
tonnage TO day. But, attempting to prov
that we cannot regain our lost tonnage |
the proposed laws, it supplements It's faI
statement that it now costs twice as mn,
10 build vessel in this country as abroa
by The more definite assertion that g Shi
Z can he built for sixty dollars less ton
foreign countries than in orr own, al
declares that, g if tho bill passes, there W
g remain difference Of forty five dollars
g ton in favor Of the foreign ship owners
advantage against which his American ry
cannot possibly compete The conous
would be true were The premises not falls
but the figures given are grossly exaggeratc
and the real difference il so slight that t
proposed drawbacks will nearly, if IL
quite, remove them, Pass the bills ietuu
iag duties on foreign materials, and giyi
equal drawbacks on American materials u
enter into the construction of ships, and
can say Ter our Wilmington iron shipbnil
ers,-the largest in America, --thct NJ
nr6 ready n ao2'aIeie rim mn o,icr