The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-06-26

transported over eight hundred millions |
of our total commerce. being 165 per cent. |
or $500 600 600 more than we actually did |
transport 1t would have been justly re-
garded as most discouraging If in an in |
crease of seventy per cent. in our foreign
commerce we had, merely retained the |
same absolute amount we carried In 1851, |
leaving the whole of the increase to other |
nations But our case is far worse than
that, for we heve not only yielded all the
increase to the foreigner, but we have
quietly surrendered, in 1878, two hundred |
millions of the amount we transported IN
1857.
As the profits to the navigation interest
are reckOned 10 be 10 per cent on the
amount of freight transported and the pas
sengers connected herewith, it is quite
evident that we are annually meeting with
a most serious loss compared with our con-
Giition before the war. Then we carried
more than 20 per cent of both exports and
imports, and now We carry 20 per cent
As freight moneys are pacticaliy paid
in gold, the country IN whose Golfers they
accumulate must have an overwhelming
advantage in all matters pertaining to the
specie standard. After the October panic
of 1857, which was severe and widespread,
the banks of the United States very
promptly resumed specie payment, and
it was said by close observers in finance
that such result would have been lmpOs-
sible but for the large earnings of our
ships, amounting at that time to fifty
millions per annum in gold. This brings
to light the important and pressing ques-
ton as to the effect on the specific stan
dard to be produced by nearly seventy
five per cent, of the freight money on our
foreign commerce being paid TO European
countries. The profits of the carrying
trade into the foreign commerce of the
United States have largely exceeded q
thousand millions in, gold since 1859,
amounting indeed 10 nearly twelve hum
dred millions, and well nigh three quarters
of this vast sum has gone to enrich Great
Britain, France, and Germany. As we
have now entered upon an era of specie
payment in the United States, our ability
to maintain that condition with all its ad-
| vantages becomes a question of the grave.t
Importance What will be the ultimate
and permanent effect of this constant and
increasing drain of gold coin, becomes
Therefore, u question of deep interest to
tevery man of business in the coantry-for
| it touches the welfare of farmer and man
ufacturer, of laborer and banker alike.
When all these depressions and discour-
agements are realized, certain political
economists come forward with the sugges-
tion that our remedy lies in the repeal Of
the admission of foreign built ships to
American registry. We can then get
English steamers. they say, as cheap as
English merchants do, and can at once en-
ter into successful competition on the
ocean. Of course the adoption of this
policy would he an abandonment of all
effort aud all ambition on the part of the
United States 10 be great maritime pow
er, and would be a formal proclamation of
our subserviency to England, and our de
pendence upon her for our ships. II we
| go to England to get our non ships this
year because we can get them cheaper
would we not be compelled to do the same
next year and the year after, and would we
not indeed be still less able to compete
with her each succeeding year, Increase
of patronage to the English builder would
tend continually to lessen his prices, and
decrease of patronage TO the American
builder must necessarily 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 England
When it is. remembered that ninety nine
per cent, of the cost of q steamship is
mechanical labor and only one per cent
i raw material; when il is further remem
bered that a steamship gives employment,
to as many men on land as she does on
the water, we may begin to appreciate the
enormous difference there would be be
tween building our own ships in our OWL
yards, by our own mechanics on the one
h0d, and on the other hand sending oul
money abroad to build them in foreign
i yards by foreign mechanics, and to have
them repaired and sustained there
p,,f tlfc c.rlxs So
tous. A navy can not be reared as an exc
tic. We can not abolish the art of iror
ship-building in this country and still
maintain a navy. We can not permit oul
merchant marine to dwindle and decay
and still keep up navy of strength anC
prestige. a navy can not be improviseC
for an emergency. 1t grows, and it grows
slowly. The navy that won honor ant
gave luster to our flag in the second wal
with Great Britain was the outgrowth o
the navigation laws, enacted in Washing
tons administration; when, poor as VIZ
were in everything, in money, in .me
lchanical skill, in tools, in machinery, We
yet laid 1t down as the policy Of the young
Republic that no vessel except those bull
by American mechanics in American ship
4 yards and commanded by American
officers should ever float the American
flag Out Of this policy grew the navy o.
1Sf2-'15, commanded by Decatur anG
Perry, by Porter and Bainbridge, by Law
renee and Burrows and their great com
patriots, the navy that met the world famed
navy of England and in every fight will
equal metal came off victor 1t was thess
same navigation laws that trained the mer
for the emergency of our great civil wal
when We were enabled at moment!
warning to furnish 1000 good officers ant
ten times that number of seamen to sea
the ports of the South and 10 do some O
tue best and bravest fighting Of the cen
tury. i'-'" 'sti9is y i'si''-
i The great iron ships for the British nav,
are built in private ,shipyards at a cost "a
below. the cost of the same work If exccu
ted in Government yards. Those privat,
ship-yards, on the Clyde, at Birkenhead
at Belfast, owe their origin and thei
l growth to the pecuniary aid extended b,
the British Government to her steamship
lines that traverse every sea and contrO
the commerce of both hemispheres.
Let us learn wisdom from our rivals
Not only does England continue by larg
pecuniary aids to stimulate the growth o
hef steam marine, but from the days o
Oliver Cromwell until the reign Of Victoria
she maintained the most rigid protection
of all her navigation. interests-repealinl
the last Of her executive statutes as latel,
as 1S49. One of her most intelligent com
|, mercial writer's and statisticians describe
and embodies the navigation laws of Eng
land in wOrdsthat are worthy to be quoted
"These laws comprised an ingeniousl.
constructed system in favor of British ses
men, British ship-builders. British ship
owners and British merchants. In readin
the complicated and apparently readund
ant enactments which constituted the MAJ
time-cOde of England, it seems AZ If Britis
l ai fnr un h,rndraA =
haunted by dread last IN all the wild
, | world a loonhole of advantage miQht b