The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1881-03-03

ARE HEOUESTEDT TO sEETHATTHEIR DATES
| ARE CORRECT Subscribers in arrears are re
qucStcd to forward the sums due
American Ships, or British Ships?
The Portland Advertiser, which we re-
greet TO find among the advocates of free
ships asks the Journal certain questions
which we shall take great pleasure in
answering. First, the Advertiser wants
to know: eff free ships did not stop
British ship building, why should the
same policy iniure American ship build
ers p To this we reply that the policy
of the two countries with regard to their
shipping interests have been, and are,
totally unlike. 1t is not because foreign
built ships can be admitted to British
registry that Great Brtain's commercial
marine has increased while ours has di
minished that her ship yards have been
| busy while ours have been idle. Had she
bought her ships abroad, it is obvious
that the Yards on the Mersey and the
| Tyne would have been deserted. But she
| has not done SO she has built her ships
at home. Her ship building interest has
| been protected and fOstered, while her
ships atioat have not only been lightly
/ taxed in comparison with our own, but
| have been given liberal subsidies. Great
Britain isnow paying about $4,000, 900 per
annum in subsidies for the conveyance
| of foreign and colonial mails. \ compar
ison made by the Boston commercial Bull
letin further illustrates the different con
ditiOns under which British and Ameil
can ship-owners do their business. 1t
says
Take an American and English line; the outfit
OF each Is s. 900, GOO The tax on the American
| property would be = per cent. On similar ships
The English company would pay one per cent. on
| the earnings. This is the result
Capital In Net Earn
Lines vested. lngs Taxation.
! American : 000 600 $685. 900 9l1j,000
| English / 600 900 JG0 600 900
Discrimination in tax against Ameri-
can line Observation-Disclosures Sl69, 400
Nor is this ALL In notice of a re
cent monograph by Mr.. Charles $. Hill,
entitled, american or Foreign Ships
Which ~ the Washington Capital says:
"The combination Of the British Lloyd
and other foreign insurance companies in
giving preference to foreign ships in in
surance r; ties, to destroy our shipping, is
something new in argument, and start
ling, when we see one monopoly alone
! (the Lloyd using two hundred million
dollars annually against us. Will the
Finance Committee investigate the di-
rectors of foreign insurance companies
who are writing beautiful letters in favor
OF free ships, and declaring Americans
cannot build IRON ships, when, in fact as
Mr. Hill shows, we have outstripped Eng
land and all nations proportionately in
both our iron and coal industries There
is still another point in favor of the Brit
ish ship builder and owner. England al
lows drawback upon all the articles
that ship requires for her outfit They
are taken out of bond duty free. Our
ships have no such privileges; are I'M
subsidized and heavily taxed. These dis
advantages they must labor under wheth-
er built abroad or at home
Under these circumstances it is hardly
surprising that free ships did not stop
British snip building, and it is equally
evident to us that free ships must injure
American ship builders. The free ship
measure is but an opening wedge for the
/ practical extinction of American COM
transfer from British to American owner
ship of some surplus steam tonnage,
extensively of late, under the head Of
disasters, in the marine report tlimsly
built, obsolete in model; but cheap. This
step secured, the present advocates of free
ships will naturally advocate subsidies
and reduction of the taxes on shipping.
Then, when it is to their pecuniary ad-
vantage to do 50, British ship owners will
fly the American colors. The transfers
will be merely nominal; the ostensible
owner will be simply an American agent
for the real owners in England, who will
pocket the earnings. And how long will
it be after the passage Of free ship bill!
before the building Of vessels for the coast
and lake traffic will be taken from us (?
That result is inevitable and it is one of
the ends the free ship lobby at Washing
ton has in view The leading spirits in
this movement are Englishmen and their
paid agents. The few followers they
have who, like our esteemed contempora
ry of the Advertiser, are not in either of
! these classes, are as misguided as those
who were led off by the Greenback craze.
They see and deplore, as we do, the I'M
fortunate condition of our commerce but
they fail to see, as we do, that the remedy
they propose is worse than the disease
We are firm believers in American in
dustry, ingenuity and enterprise. We
are confident that if permitted to enter
the competition upon anything like equal
terms, our ship builders could pay their
workmen better wages than are paid to
those on the Clyde, Shannon and Tyne
produce better ships; and that we should,
at no distant day, regain our supremacy
upon the ocean. But handicapped as they
are now by taxation and subsidized ri
walls, and with the free ship bill hanging
over them, the situation is almost hope
less. We have coal and iron in abund-
| ance: we have naval architects skilled