The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1881-06-09
Subsidies or Steamship Lines.

SuDSlQleS OF oteamSHlp LINES.
The Hon. Hugh McCulIoch is accepted
as an authority on financial questions,
and is one OF our foremost writer's on
political economy. His arguments i'll
favor OF free ships have been widely
quoted by the American aecntsand allies
of British shipbuilders and owners. But
of late Mr.. McCulloch has discovered that
lie was wrong in this matter, and III the
June number of the North American Re
view he admits his error and takes his
stand with those who are striving to Sc
cure for this country her former status Oh
the ocean. After speaking Of British and
Canadian competition i'll the Brazilian
trade, and Of what bids fair to be serious
Chinese competition on the Pacific Ocean,
not for the protection which our naviga-
ton acts give to our cOastWse trade, We
should be virtually driven from the ocean,
while at the same time we furnish the
lading by which foreign ships are chiefly
sustained That is the position assumed
at the outset by the opponents Of the free
ship delusion. NEARLY all Of the enor-
nous productions sent from our Atlantic
ports to Europe" continues Mr.. McCul-
loch, sis taken in foreign steamships. The
immigrants who come to US by thousands,
the pleasure seekers and business men
who are constantly crossing the Atlantic
-cighths Of whom are Americans),
come and go i'll the same manner. Could
anything he more Illuminating than this
to a great nation whose flag was once
seen on every sea, and in every port on
the globe :"
Mr.. McCuloch dates the decline in our
foreign shipping from the time OF substi-
tuting iron for wood in the construction
OF steamships, and says it was ''hastened
by the course pursued by Great Britain
in our civil war" and 'has been continued
by our inability to build iron steamships
(Which by their superior speed have great
advantage over sailing vessels, and over
wooden steamships, by their greater
strength and longer lite) and to navigate
them as cheaply as is done by Europeans
BY this decline, the people of the United
States are compelled to pay annually mil
lions of dollars 1--WE should be startled if
we knew how much) for freights and
fares, in the profits of which they have
no share
Coming now to the questions how shall
this decline be arrested and how Shall
this most important interest be revived
and restored, Mr. McCulloch makes the
following frank admission
Until quite recently have thought that it might
be done BY giving the protection Of Our flag to for
elgn-bullt shlps-in other words, by repeating the
acts which prevent free trade in them by reliev
ing from import duties all material used in the con
strueton OF ships, and all ships from State taxa
ton; but think no longer. Such measures
might have been etfectual some years ago; they
would not be now. 1t is too late The foreign
carrying is IN the hands Of Europeans, who have
large capital invested in their ships. Efforts to
divide the business with them by American CAPT
tasts, would be met by competition too power
full to be resisted without loss
Mr. McCulloch concludes, therefore, that
without aid from the Government no such
efforts will be made, and that, if this he
so, "the revival and restoration of Our
foreign shipping must depend upon the
granting of subsidies. We must do what
has been done by other nations. We
must subsHiiSp Amcrican steamship lines."
That is just what Mr.. Blaine and other
friends Of our shipping interest have been
advocating for years But we ought to
give our sailing ships chance also They
must continue to have an important place
in the worlds commerce, but are hand-
capped now by taxation from which their
foreign competitors are relieved If
steamships are subsidized, justice de-
mands that a helping hand should be ex-
tended also to deep water sailing craft.
This can be best done by removing the
duty from material used in their construc-
ton, and by relieving them, in part at
least, from the taxation which now rem
ders their voyages Improbable. We are
confident that Mr.. McCulloch would come
to this conclusion if he should pursue the
subject further. What he says concern
ing the Importance Of this question will
command attention.
1t is very certain. unless are content with be-
ing the first of nations i'll agriculture and the sec
ond or third in manufactures that something must
be done to re estabsh our maritime interest To
do nothing is to yield to Europeans the glory and
the gain which have always been the concomitants
of maritime enterprise 1t is to foreign commerce
that the world, more than anything else is indebt-
ed for its advancement in liberty, refinement and
true Christian civilization In the contest which
is going on between nations for the control of this
great liberalizng, refining and civiliziDg power is
the great republic to have part If subsidies
are not to be granted other measures must be
adopted to lift us from the dependent and ignobe
position in which we stand and to prevent
still further degradation. What these measures
should be somebody more enlightened than am
must disclose