New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-01-25
I'D EOSTER COMMERCE.


no FOSTER COMMERCE.
Congress has lately been discussing IN It's
usual desultory and random manner, the con-
dition of American commerce and tho rene
dies for its. prostitution, and, as usual tho
widest and most empirical notions concerning
the revival Of the ship building interest arc
advanced Some legislators seem to think the
only way to get American ships Is TO Duy
British ones, repeating the registry laws mean
time, which is burning the candle at both
ends. Other statesmen, equally profound. ask
ia to let in ship building materials duty 1rec'
thus compromising the first proposition by I'M
porting the ships half made; and still others'
in a wild delirium of free-tradlng' cry
out that We shall never have our lost COM
merce back again until we abolish the Custom
houses, fill up orr mercantile marine Win 1rce
ships, and dcluge the country with free goods.
few voices are in favor Of substituting lines
of steamers from the Atlantic ports OF the
United States to Western Europe, with branches
ramifying through the Mediterranean, Suez
Canal, and Red Sea, with quarter section OF
public land to each one hundred tuns OF
steamer and each ship-boy and engineers
apprentice. If Congress should authorize the
suspension of the marine registry laws and
permit the purchase and registry Oh
foreign built ships, it is morally GER
tain that in ten years there would
not be ship-builder left in the United
States. We should have ships enough-but
nothing for them to do. Trade would Ian
guish, and thousands of industries now pining
would DO extnguished. To admit ship-build-
| ers' materials free of duty would be to open
! the door to vast opportunities for fraud ; 1T
would vitate the whole system OF protection
to American industry; it would give at once
commanding reason for every branch of
| manufactures to demand that tho materials,
machinery, and tools of their special calling
should be exempted from customs duty; it
would be to open an insidious leak through
which great variety of industrial production
! would dribble away. 70 subsidize lines Of
steamers which would be forthwith brought
into keen competition with those of European
nations, would be to waste the national reve-
nues in On unequal contest with peoples
whose policy is all against us, and whose ships
already occupy the fields of commerce.
1t has specially been the policy of Great
Britain, France, and Holland to mOnOpOlze
the great lines of maritime trade and travel
by substituting companies which have built and
run steamers to countries where commerce was
| undeyeloped and in which promise of in
creased production held out some prospect Of
gain in the future. The British Government
subsidized the Cunard line for twenty-five
years before it was thought strong enough to
maintain itself with its growing traffic
and the mail subventions. The same Gov
eminent pursued like policy with the
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, and that Company, now one
of the most powerful in the world, carried
British pig iron to Asiatic ports, for ballast
when it first was established; and to-day it
carries iron and iron manufactures as paying
freight to the ports which have thus been de-
veloped into customers. France has pursued
the same line of policy, especially in the
Mediterranean and the Orient, where the
Messageres Imp6rales, subsidized line,
have carried the French flag and French
goods for many years. And the French Gov
ernment pays an annual subsidy to line of
| frst-class schoOners plying between tho ports
of San Francisco and Tahiti, thus availing
themselves of our trans-continental route to
secure mail facilities with their own South
Sea possessions.
| 1t is silly to talk of reviving American COM
merce by reinforcing it with foreign-built
ships; it is folly to debate the expediency of
administering tonic in the shape of q modi-
fcation of the tariff which would discriminate
in favor of class Of articles which enter into
general as well as special consumDtinI. we
may as well import iron ships and have done
with it, as import iron plates for ship-build-
ing. Possibly, out of the chaos of opin-
ions on this subject, something Ineligible
and practicable may yet arise. Out of
the confusion which our changed position
in the worlds commerce has produced,
some relief for us may be forced by the sub
tie influences which modify the laws of trade,
even though we do not discern the moving
power. But at present we may at least nour-
ish the commerce which VIC have, and increase
its strength in the newer fields which it devel-
ops. Australia and the multitudinOus islands
of the South Pacific invite us, and brisk
trade in American manufactured goods is al
ready springing up in those remote regions.
The development of American commerce with
China and Japan is one of the untold wonders
of this century. The japanese are buying our
agricultural implements. sewing machines, fur
niturc, -four and grain, butter, fruit, and
leather. The steamers that take these goods
to the 0fent bring back raw silk and hcmn