Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-06-19

of the seas--the saving 20 the government ny
the steam merchant marine wouiu DC "or'h III
a series Of years far more fhan u would co
to establish great commercial lines to all the
chief ports of the worio.
A nation with fifteen thousand miles of sea
coast. fronting Europe, Asia, Africa, and
South America cannot afford to be other than
a great commercial and great naval power.
If pride and prestige do not suggest it, self
interest and self-defense will demand it. Ii
is the necessity o! our situation almost as alb
solutely as il is the necessity of England.
With equal advantages given to our people We
could in few years outrun England in the
race for commercial supremacy But no mir
acle will come to our aid. II we continue to
fold our arms in inaction while other nations
are straining every nerve and making every
OUTLAY we shall receive our reward in de
serted ship yards, in unemployed mechanics,
in the drain of our specie resources. in the
loss of our birthright, in the gradual decay
of that skill in the building and sailing of
ships which only abides where ships are built
and sailed. We can be everything or we can
be nothing We can march in the van or We
can lag ingloriously in the rear and vanish
from the race. Other nations can neither
help nor hinder us. The decision is with
ourselves and for ourselves.
1t is especially fit that this question should
be pressed upon the attention of the mer-
chants and capitalists of New York, among
whom you. gentlemen, are justly recognized
rs honOred and eminent. Your city to-day
is the largest exporting mart Of the world.
This is true in the money value of the mcr-
chandise shipped, while in bulk and weight
YOU are trebly as large AS Liverpool your
leading rival. and therefore demand treble the
ocean tonnage. And yet there is not Il single
steamer sailing from New York To Europe
that bears the American flag. New York
merchants have taken no steps looking to the
revival of the carrying trade; nor have they
asked the Government to assist therein. Dur
ing the last twenty-five years Congress has
passed ninety-two acts to aid in the building
of railroads, has given TO these enterprises
two hundred million acres of the public lands
and has advanced seventy millions in cash.
And yet, SO gigantic is our railway system
and vast its expenditure that the aid ex
tended by Government has not exceeded 3
per cent. of the total cost of our eighty
thousand miles of ral-greatcr in extent than
is contained in all the world beside. The
Government has supplied per cent. and pri-
vate capital has furnished ~ per cent
What countless millions New York capital
lists have launched in these great railway en-
terprises, And when they have brought the
products of continent to their port they re-
sign all control to the foreigner. The prin-
cipal route from Chicago. Saint Louis. or
Cincinnati to Liverpool is through New York
one continuous route, four thousand miles
in length. New York aims with American
capital to control one thousand miles of it,
and without struggle gives three thousand
miles to the control of English capital Phil
adelphia, with but fraction of New Yorks
&. 4. -. 4 4
line of steamers 20 Liverpool, and maintain
ing it with an enterprise and courage that
does honor to its projectors and to the great
city whose capital and whose mechanical skill
produced the ships. Let her example be fol-
lowed with or without aid from the Govern
ment; with il where essential: without it
where practicable. Boston, Philadelphia
Portland, New Orleans, San Francisco,
Charleston, Savannah. all have a large ex-
port trade, but New York alone ships nearly
half of the entire exports of the United
States, and on any policy affecting that vast
trade New York must take the lead. The
country waits on her. She can keep us trib-
utary to England, or she can proclaim and
enforce the second declaration of CONNER
cial independence.
Let us learn wisdom from our rivals. Not
only does England continue BY large pecunia-
y
marine, hut from the days of Oliver Crom-
well until the reign of Victoria she main
tanned the most rigid protection of all her
navigation interests-repealing the last of her
exclusive statutes as lately as 1910. One of
our most intelligent commercial writers and
statistcans describes and embodes the nav
igation laws of England in words that are al
ways worthy to be quoted
"These laws comprised an ingeniously constructed
system In favor OF British seamen, British ship.bud
ers British ship.awners and British merchants. In
reading the complicated and apparently redundant
enactments which constituted the maritime code of
England, il seems Ms If British statesmen were for
two hundred years haunted by dread lest in all the
wide world loop-hole Of advantage might be left to
the ships of other nations, which by any possibility
The maritime code Of Great Britain proudly en-
titled by Engshmen "Charta Martina" No
student OF history doubt but that her nav
tiOn laws England chiefly owes the vast extension of
national wealth. and that colonial expansion which
gave her an empire upon which the sun never set J.
Under this protective policy her power upon the
ocean became supreme"
England has always been for protection
when that was needed to develop any of her
great interests; and always for free trade as
soon as she became strong enough in any
field of enterprise to defy and to destroy com
petition. To-day We are excluded by her en-
ergy from the steam marine of the world, and
we shall remain in that pitiable condition I'M
til we use the same instrumentaities by which
she has won her imperial supremacy. We
must arm with the weapons of Achilles in a
contest with Achilles himself
Very respectively yours,
-,