Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-02-20

Senator Frye. Of Maine, made great
protection speech in the Senate few
days ago, in which he took the ground
that a high tariff is necessary to keep out
British manufactures and protect home
industries. 1t seems, however, that
while protection does to great extent
keep out foreign imports, it does not
always have the effect of guaranteeing
prosperity to protected enterprises.
For instance, take Mr.. Frye's own
State. The chief industry of Maine be-
fore the war was the building of wooden
ships. Thanks TO protection. ships can
be built so much cheaper abroad now
that their construction in the
United States is almost entirely de-
stroyed. and while this is so. this same
protection for American shipbuiiders
has, so far from keeping out British and
other vessels, virtually converted our
seaboard commercial cities into British
ports. Foreign ships mOnopolize our
outward bound mails and passenger
traffic to such an extent that the Ameri-
can merchant marine is a thing Of the
past. and even when the balance OF
general trade is in our favor. very large
proportion Of our profits have to go i'm.
mediately out of the country into the
hands of foreign shipowners in the way
of freights.
On this subject the New York Com
nercial Bulletin remarks, with great
force: 1.-THE United States to-day is the
best market for the foreign shipOwner
and shipbuilder, and in order to keep
this market the British Parliament could
well afford to vote an annual subsidy to
Mr.. Frye and his friends for thus main
tanning an economic policy, which has
practically annihilated American ships
and sailors and confirmed British SUI
premacy on the seas. Outside OF the
coastIng trade, under this system, there
is no merket worth speaking Of either
for American shipbuilders or American
sailors. For the past twenty years we
have been fostering the industries Of the
Clyde, the Humber, the Tees and the
Mersey, to the neglect of those which we
formerly had, and might yet have, on
the East river, the Hudson, the Della
ware, and even down in Mr.. Frye's own
State of Maine. AS for the American
sailor, if Mr. Frye ever reads the
reports Of our Consuls to the State
Department, he must be conscious
that he is talking about something that
can scarcely be said to exist. The
American sailor, under the system he is
DESTROYS Of perpetuating, is in fact an
extinct species. As our Consul at Am
sterdam puts it, 'he is quite curiosity.
The Senator from Maine is entitled to all
the credit his arguments, such as they
are, are worth; but when he claims that
free trade is in the special interest Of
England, the once great but now nearly
extinct industry of his own State, which
protection has well nigh killed oil, 1t
seems to US, must rise up from its grave
to confute and confOund him."
Thus it seems that the decline almost
to extinction of the chief industry in
Mr.. Frye's own State through the work
ings of our protective tariff and unjust
navigation laws, rise up to refute that
gentleman's statements in defense Of his
theory. Yet the people of the country,
and especially of New England. in spite
of these damaging facts, and with our
destroyed commerce staring them in the
face, still continue to allow themselves
to be hoodwinked by speciOus and plausi-
BE arguments.