New-York tribune., 1870-04-08


Because iron steamships can now be built
cheaper abroad, it does not follow that 1.-THE
"proiits of navigation would be far greater in
" foreign built than in home-buit vessels"
encouragement of our shipping interest Is
so interviewer with our manufacturing and
mining industries, that it creates home markets.
increases the ability to consume foreign pro-
ducts, and so increases commercial profits.
Protection always gives ultimately cheaper
and better article. and it would be difficult to
show why ip-bulding should form an excep-
ton, or why we could not excel in iron steam
ships as we did in wooden sailing-vesselS before
the war. American labor commands higher wages
than European labor. We should, therefore,
build ships the same as before the war, and we
should in the end succeed in this, as III every
other case of competition with England. In
reyiving this national interest, it is not just
that private capital should alone accomplish it,
unaided by Congress.
Englands advantage in this is not the fault
of American artisans, but results from the war !;
and Congress should at once repair the loss sus-
tanned, either by removing the revenue taxes on
ship materials, by direct subsidies, or by. grants
of land The first might disturb the financial
policy of the Government, and the second
might too much drain the Treasury. The third
seems best adapted to the exigency of the case,
especially if so guarded as to insure the imme-
date settlement of the lands The wisdom of
this land policy is fully exemplifed in our
transcOntinental railways. 1t is building up En-
pire States in the interior of the Republic, and
developing fabulous mineral wealth Through
these railways, the resources of the Republic
accumulate upon our tide-waters, and call for
ocean railways of iron steamship lines to trans
port them to Europe and Asia. 1t has been
said: "The profits of ship building are paid
"Out of the subsequent profits of navigation /;
"and, as the receipts for freights are the ulti-
"mate fund out of which all the profits of the
"whole shipping interest are paid it is more
important for the country to secure these
:" than the partial and lesser profits of building
"the ships by which the freights are earned"
Exactly so. The profits of the merchant are
more than those of the ship builder upon the
individual ship, for the latter only gets the
excess in the price of the ship over the cost of
building it, while the former makes his profits
from year to year. but why not save both
classes of profits, the former directly and the
latter indirectly, through the stimulants of our
industries as before named
The Committee on the Decline of American
Commerce argue that to purchase and register
foreign built iron steamships would deprive us
of our mechanical skill, or compel us to main
tain it at great expense in Government works,
and oblige us to keep up a large and expensive
naval establishment to maintain the national
honor, in case it were assaicd. This argument
has been pronounced "utterly futile" because
Foreigners cannot engage in our cOasting
"trade.' in which the tunnage exceeds that of
our foreign trade, and for which the ships are
"entirelY built by our own mechanics" and
therefore, "the art of ship building cannot die
"out among u.s."
But 10000 tuns of steam vessels now engaged
in our coasting are made up of foregn-b built
blockade runners, sold without authority of law
by the late Secretary of the Navy and without
authority of law are now running under the
American flag, doing a large part of our large
cOastlng trade. This, we think, deserves the
attention of Congress. AS our coasting trade
increases, it will require larger ships; and we
cannot see why the same policy that justifies
building abroad an iron steamship of 5000 tuns
for our foreign trade should not require the
same class of ships to be foreign built for the
cOasting trade between our great Atlantic cities,
and between them and our cities on the Pacific,
through ship canal, soon to be opened from
one ocean to the other. If it be wise that our
citizens purchase and register iron steamships
for our foreign trade, why not permit them to
do the same for the more important service of
our coasting and inland trade' We approve
the views of Mr.. Lynch and his Committee, and
of the President, in his late Message, upon this
great national subject, and advocate building
our own ships for both our foreign and our
domestic trade.
Public interest throughout the State on the
subject of sectarian school appropriations has