The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-21

The following paragraph appears in the re-
port of the proceedings OF tne Senate last
Monday
REyrvrNe AMERICAN COMMERCE.
Mr. Conklmg Qiep., N. " Introduced bill to aid
ion steamships, together with ship yards, ma
chine shops, rolling mills, wnarves docks, etc and
to secure to Government the of the same for
postal, naval, and other purposes. IL was referred
to the Committee on Commerce.
The bill proposes TO incorporate W. ii. Webo,
Clarence CLARK, John A. Hriswold, John Roach,
Paul n. Sp ltlord Henry Steers, and Others under
the name Of the American Mail and Ocean Trans
poTtatioD Company, for the purpose above lndlcae
and provides that the Government OF the United
States shall pay the interest on the first NOR gage
bonds OF the company to the amount Of s20,00O,0J0
in gold for thirty years, not becoming responsible,
or 1ne U are t5 carry the
United States mails and Government agents free of
charge.
Decidedly it is a misnomer to call this
bill ''to revive American commerce." 1t
ought to be called a bill to revive the busi-
ness of Messrs. Webb Clark, Griswold, and
their associates. There is little prospect that
so barefaced scheme of undeserving cha
rity will succeed; but it is nevertheless mat
ter deeply to be regretted that Senator from
the State which at the last election so boldly
protested against class legislation should be
the willing moutbpiece of the managers of
this job.
Does any man suppose that such bill,
should it become law, would benefit in the
slightest degree those ship-owners who are
anxious to buy vessels wherever they can be
bought most cheaply? Or that it would aid
the ship-builders of our own country who are
not in the Webb-Griswold ring?
This whole ship-building and ship buying
question is an exceedingly simple one. 1t
has been asserted by Mr.. Roach himself, and
ably set forth in a pamphlet issued by the
proprietors of the Atlantic Works at Boston,
that if plate-iron, pig-iron, rigging, etc-in
short, all the materials which go to the build
ing of our iron vessels-were free of duty,
our ship builders could compete with their
foreign rivals notwithstanding the higher
rate of wages in this country.
AS it is, these materials are so costly, be-
cause of the enormous duties laid upon them,
that American competition with foreign
builders is impossible, and will continue to
be so while the present tariff is in force
When we remember that there is also law
against buying and registering a foreign
built ship, we perceive that radical legisla-
ton has placed our merchants in the pleasant
position of being unable to build or buy
vessels.
Could there be any remedy for this state of
things more simple than the abolition of the
duty on ship-building materials and the repeal
of the law forbidding the registry of foreign
built vessels? If this were done, our mer-
chants would buy their ships of American
puIueIs, proVlueo inc latter snouiu prove
able to hold their own against foreign compe-
tition. If not, foreign ships would be bought
and placed under the American flag, and
American commerce would flourish, even if
American building proved Improbable.
The Conkling scheme, on the other hand,
proposes simply to take a million dollars
annually from the people and give it to
Messrs. Webb, Griswold, and their associates,
to enable them to build twenty ships for
their own personal benefit while all other
ship-owners are left precisely where they now
are. Why this bill for the benefit of these
half dozen favored men should be falsely
styled bill to aid American commerce is
question which the merchants of New York
who are not associated in business with the
benefciaries named would like TO have Mr..
ConkliDg answer.