Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-12
SAN FRANCISCO AND THE SHIPPING
INTEREST.


enactment of a law placing decreased duties
on certain articles when imported in Amer
lean ships. These two last suggestions the
Board admits to be SO radical that they
would probably produce retaliatory legis-
ton abroad, and therefore they are only
recommended as last resort. The repeal
of the navigation laws is also proposed,
but not unless or until the preceding
legislation shall have been tried
and found inadequate. 1t will be
seen from this abstract of the Boards
recommendations to Congress that it has
brought together number of scarcely
compatible economic principles, and has
succeeded in making very curious
mixture of free trade and protection. The
propositions to remove the duties on the
materials used in ship building, and to
repeal the Navigation laws, are both prac-
tical and sound. We do not, however,
understand what the Board means by first
recommending postal subsidies, and then
saying, "We repel the idea of subsidy in
this connection" They propose the es-
Enlistment of ocean postal routes to be
carried by first. class steamships" ga libe-
raj compensation to be paid such estab-
81 hshed lines under general law authoriz-
ing the Postmaster. General to make ten or
twenty-year contracts for the carriage of
''mails to important maritime ports" If
this is not subsidy, what is it !?
The Board, however, does not appear to
perceive that while it would be a good
thing to remove the duties from the ma.
terial used in ship-building, the removal OF
those duties could not alone restore the
country's merchant marine. For even if it
were possible to build ships in the United
States as cheaply as on the Clyde, it would
still be necessary to find cargoes for them.
No doubt certain amount OF transport
alton could be secured in the carriage of
| wheat to Europe, but in order to restore
our foreign trade we must be able to put
all our manufactures on the markets of the
world in competition with foreign manu-.
features. Now at the present time the
only exports which can be relied on in this
connection are our cereals. All other
products of American industry are effect
ually excluded from foreign markets by the
tariff. It follows consequently that if
ships are built they can only obtain such
trade as consistsin carrying ourraw products
to the ports where those products are in
demand and these ports are comparatively
| few in number. The Board of Trade fails
necessary to the building up of powerful
and extensive merchant marine. Or per-
haps it has perceived this, and thinks to
meet the requirement by its postal subsidy
suggestion. But the postal subsidy scheme
cannot effect the purpose. All it can Go is
to enable American ships to carry the mails
to places where they would not otherwise
have gone because there was no profit in
the business.
What the country really needs is that
her manufacturers should be enabled to
compete with those of England in foreign
markets, and this can never be done while
the cost of production here is from 80 to
10 per cent higher than in Great
Britain. The San Francisco Board of
Trade should have made reduction of the
tariff its first and most important recon-
mendation. With such reduction, not
merely on the materials of ship-building,
but upon all that enters into the manu-
facture of our staples, and with free ship
building, the restoration of American ship.
ping would be assured. The two things
necessarily go together, however, and it is
impossible to separate them without rem
dering abortive whatever efforts are made
to revive the merchant shipping interest.
When the report was being discussed Mr..
c. I. Hopkins opposed the memorial from
a high tariff standpoint, alleging that if the
duties on ship building material were re-
moved, all the ship-builders would buy
English iron, and so the American rolling
mills would be ruined. Mr.. Hopkins does
not seem to have reflected that through the
the adoption of contrary policy the ship
building interest has already been ruined,
but no matter what effect the removal of
the duties could or might have upon the
iron trade, the equities of the case as re-
CARDS the shipping interest are the same.
We do not believe that what Mr.. Hopkins
predicts would take place, however. This
has been the cry of the protected interests
from the first, and it is false pretense.
The presumption is that American mill
owners could compete with the foreign man.
ufacturers if the present protective imposts
were removed. Certainly it is obligatory
on them to demonstrate the contrary when
they insist that another and equally impor-
tant interest shall be kept in paralyzed
condition for their sole benefit.
As to the radical protective measures
proposed by the Board of Trade, the very
apprehension that they would invite retail
atory legislation is enough to condemn
them, since if England, France and Ger
many were to follow suit, and exclude
American ships from their ports, Congress
might legislate till Doomsday without being
able to restore the merchant marine of the
country. What our merchants and ship
builders want is rather more freedom for
themselves than more restriction upon for.
eigners. And it is time to point out that
the advocates of Protection will soon have
to remodel their arguments, since they
cannot be permitted to assert, in the same
breath, first that the resources and capabil-
tiles of the country are boundless, and.
second, that the nation is so feeble as to
require artificial props to all its struggling
industries. Either we are able to stand
alone, or we are not but we cannot be at
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