The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-12-14
AMERICAN SHIPPING

The Presidents recommendation for the
revival of American shipping are not only
much the weakest portion of his message,
but they are the only portion of it which
does not show some real inquiry into the
matter in hand and some real reflection
upon it. 1t is not creditable to the country
that the observations of Mr.. John Roach,
which it is fiattering to describe as sophis-
teal, should be repeated by the President
when they have been so often and so
abundantly refuted. The latest refutation
.of them, which was made in these columns
by Mr. David A. Wells was so thorough
and so complete that nobody who under
takes publicly to discuss the subject has
any excuse for being ignorant that protec-
ton has not sufficed and cannot suffice to
restore the American shipping which pro
lection has extinguished, so as to make it
either creditable or profitable to the coun-
try
President Arthur's suggestion that the
protection which has been wisely"
bestowed upon other American manufac-
turers should be bestowed upon American
shipping is especially unfortunate. In the
first place, as the World has shown, Amer
lean manufacturers of ships have higher
degree of protection than has been bestow
ed upon any other American manufacture
mo OtucI udHuldCluI6 Is pEOIcCtcu W IuC
point of absolutely prohibiting the com
peting product. In the second place, if
the theory of protection were fully reduced
to practice, we should have no ships at all,
except for internal trade, in which even
the voyage around the Horn to California
would count as it now counts in law, as
coasting voyage. The coasting trade we
reserve for our own ships, and nobody has
as vet demanded the repeal of that
reservation. For foreign trade we
have, upon the theory of the pro-
tectionists no use whatever Protection
does not seek an export trade. By the ma
ture of the case it discourages an export
trade. There is clearly no use Of pro
tective duty upon articles which we can
produce cheaper than anybody else or as
cheap, since against the importation of such
articles we are already protected by the
ocean freight. The imposition of a pro-
tective duty upon any article is therefore
confession that we cannot produce that ar
ticle as cheaply as il can be produced else
where, and this confession is confession
that we cannot export the article in com
petition with foreign producers. It is true
that in some instances, notably that of salt,
the American product has at times under
sold the foreign in neutral markets, the
price at home remaining higher than that
abroad. But this proves that protection
to the industries in which this could be
done was simply, even from protectionist
point of view. swfndle upon the taxpayers
of this country. Protection, we repeat, is a
confession that we cannot sell the protect
ed article abroad The things which we
do in fact sell abroad in great quantities
are things which we do not protect and do
not need to protect. Mr.. Morrill, yester-
day, with an assurance Characteristic of
his party, actually claimed for protection
the credit of our enormous production and
export of agricultural products the one
class of products to which we do not APP
ply the principle of protection. But the