The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-06-19

subserviency to England and our depen-
denee upon her for our ships. If we
year because we can get them cheaper. would
we not be compelled to do the
same next year and the year after, and
we not indeed be still less able to compete with
has each succeeding year? Increase of pat
ronage to the English builder would tend con-
tieually to lessen his prices and decrease of
patronage to the American builder must neces-
sariy have the opposite effect, and in very
short period under this policy the building and
repairing of iron steamships would be wholly
given up in America and transferred to Eng
land. When it is remembered that ninety
nine per cent. of the cost of a steamship is me-
chanical labor and only one per cent. raw ma
terial; when it is further remembered that
steamship gives employment to as many men
on land as she does on the water, we may be-
gin to appreciate the enormous difference
there would be between building our own
ships i'll our own yards, by our own mechanics
ON the one hand, and on the other hand send
ing our money abroad to build them in. for
egn yards by foreign mechanics, and to have
them repaired and sustained there.
And what, may ask the advocates of this
policy, what would you do with our Navy and
where would you build our war vessels? Hav-
ing driven the building of iron ships out of the
country, how do you propose to maintain the
skill at home to construct naval vessels? Or
would you carry your theory to its proper and
legitimate conclusion and have our naval YES
sells built III England also? They can certainly
be built in English ship-yards more cheap
ly to-day than they can be built in Government
yards at home. And then, if we should hap
pen by any of the complications of the future
to have a. difficulty with Great Britain, 1t
would largely conduce to our success to have
that great and magnanimous power furnish
the war vessels for both belligerents!
But this subject is serious and momentous.
A navy cannot be reared as an exotic. We
cannot abolish the art of iron ship-buldmg in
Il, sr Io4,n nfnIr1
cannot permit our merchant marine to dwindle
and decay and still keep up navy of strength
and prestige. navy cannot be improvised
for an emergency 1t grows, and it grows
slowly. The navy that won honor and gave
lustre to our flag in the second war with Great
Britain was the outgrowth of the navigation
laws, enacted in Washington administration;
when, poor as we were in everything, i'll
money, in mechanical skill, i'll tools, in ma
chinery, yet laid it down as the policy of
the young Republic that no vessel except those
built by American mechanics in American
ship yards and commanded by American Off
GERS should ever float the American flag. Out
of this policy grew the Navy of 1S12-15, COM
manded by Decatur and Perry, by Porter and
cambridge, by Lawrence and Burrows and
their great cOmpatriotS; the Navy that met the
world-famed Navy of England and in every
fight with equal metal came off victor. 1t was
these same navigation laws that trained the
men for the emergency of our great civil war
when we were enabled at moments warning
to furnish seven thousand good officers and ten
times that number of seamen to seal the ports
of the South and to do some of the best and
bravest fighting of the century
The great iron ships for the British navy are
built in private ship-yards at a cost far below
the cost of the same work if executed in Gov
ernm 9nt yards. Those private ship-yards on
the Clyde at Birkenhead, at Belfast, owe their
origin and their growth to the pecuniary aid
extended by the British government to her
steamship lines that traverse every sea
and control the commerce of both hemispheres.
| Five and a half millions year may seem like
large sum to pay for mail sereive as subsidy,
| but can any one doubt that aside from the I'M
| measurable and innumerable advantages that
| have thus accrued to the commerce of Great
| Britain, the government more than gets back
| its outlay in the cheaper and more expeditions,
| and better work it secures for its navy as COM
| pared with the cumbersome and costly yards
| controlled directly by the Admiralty. And
| should we not realize the same advantage in
the United States if we should build up pri-
| vate yards along the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts? l hold it to be matter susceptible of
| demonstration that less sum from the National
| Treasury in aid of individual enterprise would
| build these yards at various points from East
port to Vancouver; a less sum, say, would
| build the yards than would be saved to the
| Government in the better and cheaper con-
struction and repair of the vessels of the navy.
| Or to put the proposition in the reverse way, L
| am still more confident that if we should give
up the attempt to build iron ships at home and
| change our laws so as to import them from
| English yards, the expense of building our
naval vessels would in brief period be enor-
mously enhanced by having no surrounding
| growth of mechanical skill, which is always
| developed under encouragement and vanlsheS
when employment ceases. The increased cost
| of needed work in our navy yards woulds in a
series of years take more money from the Ma
| tional Treasury chan the most extravagant adj
vocate of ocean mail service ever dreamed of
asking from Congress.
A current misrepresentation is to the effect
that European countries having realized
| the impolicy of aiding steamship lines by
money subsidies, have abandoned it. just
the reverse is the truth, and this very year.
| besides liberal allowance for sea-postages,
| Great Britain is paying her various steamship
lines subsidy exceeding $3,70O,000, or, to
| quote accurately from the appropriations of
| Parliament e767 ,S77; while France is paying
over four and half millions of dollars; Italy
lis paying a million and a half Austria half a
million, and even the little kingdom of
Belgium two hundred thousand. These
sums, as l have said, are in addition to
| postages which, in many cases, are paid at a
| most liberal rate, Great Britain allowing her
| American lines two ShillingS six pence per
ounce for one class of mail matter, and one
| shilling per ounce for another class. During
! the past twelve years the United States has
| paid over three and half millions to foreign
steamers for mail service. So that we have
not only waited for foreign lines to be built up
| by aid from their own governments, but with
| generosity to be noted for lavishness rather
| than wisdom, we have thrown in a few extra
millions from our own Treasury
If 1 possessed the power to prescribe q
policy for the revival of the American carry
| ing-trade, | would make it very simple and
very specific. 1 would continue the naviga-
ton laws as part of the very organic law of the
| land For wooden sailing ships no further aid
is needed than these laws afford, if we will
only seek in every way to tighten the burden
| of taxation on vessels. We can build wooden
ships better than any other country, and we
can build them as cheaply; but after they are
launched and in trade they should not be
worried and harried and burdened with every
| form of taxation, port-charge, and quarantine
exaction at home; and maltreated and OPP
pressed, as they too often are, by our consuls
in foreign ports. They should have every
facility for supply in our ports that England
gives to her ships. Wooden ships will always
and they will form large resource to our
| country. Indeed it is almost the only
resource we now have in foreign trade, and
we should cherish the interest as one inwoven
with our history and prosperity as people
My own State is more largely interested than
| any other in the Union, in the building of
wooden ships, and if the specie basis can be
firmly maintained the United States and
| Canada will furnish the sailing vessels for the
| world. Nothing but the imitation of the
will prevent the steady growth of that
valuable interest. Beyond all doubt that
would prevent its revival and increase, and
would ultimately result in its total destruction
| in our country.
But, if we content ourselves with wooden
sailing vessels we surrender the larger half of
the worlds commerce without struggle. We
must have iron steamships besides, and with
the start that other nations enjoy today, we
shall never compete with them unless we use
the same aids and the same instrumentalities
that have built their steam fleets And that
aid 1 would give. And to give it effectively
and wisely 1 would abandon all idea of granting
subsidy to special lines as they apply to Con-
gress for aid. That policy, however just and
meritorious, will always be rendered abortive
by prejudice, by jealousy, and by scandal,
either actual or imputed. 1 would prefer a
| general law that should ignore individuals and
enforce policy. For instance enact that any
man or company of men who will build in an
American yard, with American material by
| American mechanics, steamship of three
thousand tons and sail her from any port of the
United States to any foreign port, he or they
shall receive for a monthly line mail allow
ance of $50 per mile per annum, for the sailing
distance between the two ports; for a semi
monthly line $40 per mile; for weekly line
1915 per mile. Should the steamers exceed
| Il +l,o,