The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-05-31
Ere. ship. and Enlarged Com m.re..

work it is necessary to let him get the tools
of his trade and n master carpenter who
should be heard hurrying up hundred
men, urging them to get to work with saws,
planes, augers, chisels and hammers but in
their tools in the most convenient and the
cheapest shops, would be thought very
silly fellow. The capitalists for whom he
had contracted to erect row Of houses
would say to him, "Of what use is it for
you to urge your men to work, when at the
same time you prohibit them from getting
their necessary tools in the shops where
they can buy them most quickly? II the
men have no tools let them get them at
once, and wherever they can. That is the
way to get our houses built"
just now everybody has happily become
convinced that it is absolutely necessary to
q renewal of prosperity that we shall use
every means to increase our foreign trade.
The disease from which we are suffering is
not marasmus, but plethora. We are not
poor in the usual sense OF that word (; we
are poor because we are too rich. Our skilful
artisans, with the help Of labor saving ma
chinery which in 1876 at Philadelphia was
the marvel of the world, are able to produce
more goods of all kinds than we can con-
sumo at home. Hence factories and work
shops stand idle all over tho land men are
employed systematically and on half time ;
the home market becomes easily glutted
and everybody sees that we must as quickly
as possible manage to increase our exports
of manufactures We sell abroad, on the
whole, about two per cent of our total manu-
features; if we could sell ten per cent to
run on full time and we should presently
be building new ones.
But to increase our foreign commerce we
need ships to carry our products from the
home ports and bring back cargoes from
abroad in exchange This everybody knows,
and knows also that we have next to no
ships at all. Ships are tne tools Of q for
eign trade, and common sense would say,
'.Let US by all means buy ships wherever
we can and as rapidly as possible" But
''No," say the defenders Of an Anticipated
law. sNo, not at all; for Heavens sake don't
ask to buy ships; wait until they can be
built here"
That is to say, we are 20 wait for an IN
creased foreign trade until we can build
ships here at home; and meantime our
few shipbuilders are waiting until there
shall be heavier foreign trade before they
begin to build. That is the ridiculous
dilemma in which the industrious fin
gers Of the nation IRE caught, and
there they stick. At the same time
there is great cry for subsidies to ocean
lines, and we are shown, in several PAM
phlets before US, how much more money
Great Britain spends in subsidies than We
do. But the subsidy seekers entirely neg
lect to add that if England subsidies her
steamer lines she also allows her people to
ever they please, while our people are alb
solutely forbidden to buy them anywhere
except in the few shipyards to which the
law gives monopoly, which cripples their
enterprise.
In 1860 Of the vessels which entered
American ports from abroad 5,921, 900 tons
were American and only 1883, 900 tons
were foreign. In 1870 II, 218, 900 tons were
foreign and only 4,711,00O were American.
That shows whore we stand and to what we
have fallen. "Oh, but" the subsidy
mongers exclaim, 1--WE built up our naval SUI
premacy in 1850 under the prohibitory law
now complained of" True and we were
eighty years about it. Then came the war
and swept our merchant fleets from the
ocean. Other nations greedily bought our
ships they were not silly enough to forbid
their people from acquiring mercantile
marine by the speediest ways. And now
we have to begin over again; and we are to
wait another eighty years, it seems, to get
back to where we stood in 1860. Is that
common sense? European nations made
haste to buy our merchant fleets during the
war, and every American knows they did
shrewd stroke of busines; they would have
been foolish to hesitate How, then, can il
be wise in US to prohibit our citizens buy
ing ships, if they want to, from other ma
tons?
ship is not an article to be eaten or
worn and thus destroyed. 1t is a tool, the
necessary tool of ono Of our most vitality
important industries. The nation which
has the most and best Of such tools is, rs
even the subsidy -mongers acknowledge, by
that much the most powerful and prosper
Gus. Well, why not, then, let US buy these
important tools where we can get them
Why not abolish the injurious monopoly
which an antique custom q century ago
granted to the small class Of shiphnilders
and enact free ships? There is not COM
plant which we find in the subsidy PAM
phlets before us which does not condemn
the antiquatod existing law and plainly
prove that Congress ought to repeal it and
allow Americans to buy ships wherever
they choose. 1t is said, for instance, that