Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-01-11
OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE..
An Instructive Historical Review.
Naac Ynr.l HALL

What many and indeed most Democrats
would rejoice to see would be practical
repeal of all customs taxation on mate
rials imported for ship building. and a
repeal of all the laws which prevent the
purchase abroad of vessels to be brought
thither and nayigated by American cfti-
zens under the American flag. But that
cannot be secured at this session, Let us
| therefore take quickly what we can now
get. A quarter of loaf is better than no
| bread.
When the Franco-German war began.
PRESIDENT Grant urged Congress, in a spe-
cial message, if the World is not mistaken,
to pass law which would enable our
citizens to buy French vessels, which
could then be bought cheaply, or in other
words, to take advantage of the situation
created by that war, just as England and
France and Europe generally took advan-
tage OF the situation created by our civil
war. But the Committee of Ways and
Means would not recommend the Presi-
dents sensible proposition to the House.
Mr.. John Roach was stronger with that
committee than President Grant and the
interests of the American people.
The existing American tonnage laws
which are to be repealed were originally
framed in 1870. The first germs of pro-
tectiye tariff were planted in America in
1913. We adopted the one and the other
British navigation laws and the British
protective tariff laws levied against us,
after we became Independent, as aliens.
Our own ENJOYS and the intelligent Eng
lish agent who negotiated with them at
Paris in 1873, DIR. Hartley, had tried in
vain to get the British Government to ac-
cept free trade with the United States.
In 17S5 New York imposed double
duty on all goods imported in British bot
/ m
demanded tariff to ''protect manufac-
lures" and discriminating tonnage duty.
Boston refused to buy British goods and
asked for protective tariff. The South
was then alive to the folly of navigation
act. Richard Henry Lee said that the
eight States interested in the carrying
trade would surely combine to shackle
said. to Pitt, the young Prime
Minister of England: ''The
public mind in America is balancing
between free trade and a navigation act,
and the question will be decided now by
England" England did decide the ques-
ton, Jefferson asked our ally, France, to
give us an open market, but only got a
favored nation" arrangement and lit
tie reduction of French customs duty on
American fish oil. In August, 1887 the
slave trade and the navigation laws CON-
frOnted one another in the Federal con.
vention. "Better let the South import
slaves than part with the South
ern States," said Roger Sherman.
The Eastern States," said Gorham,
have no motive for union but
a commercial One." Finally, against the
votes of New Jersey, PENNSYLVANIA, Della
ware and Virginia alone, the compromise
which permitted the slave trade to be con-
tinued till 1903 was adopted. Two days
after this power was given to the Federal
Government to regulate foreign commerce
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and
Georgia yainly protesting. Nearly month
afterwards Mason, of Virginia, BROOD
ing sullenly over the Federal
power to enact navigation laws,
asked for stipulation that no
such law should be enacted before 1908.
Only three States supported him. When
the Federal Constitution was under con-
sideration in Virginia in 1888 for ratifica-
tion Mason and GraysOn again complain
ed and predicted that the carrying States
would, under the Federal power to regu-
late commerce, govern the producing
States to the injury of the latter. Thus it
was that the navigation laws and the pro-
tective tariff began in America hundred
years ago.
Both the independence of the American
colonies and the existing Federal Govern
ment had their birth in the determination
of the colOnists not to submit to protective
tariff rates levied by the British Parlia-
ary heroes of the colonial patriots of
Boston if done in these days would be
called custom house frauds. Custom
house prosecutions nagged and worried
the Boston ''SOns of Liberty'' into revolt.
And yet the whole record incontestably
shows, oddly enough, that England, by
restraining and even prohibiting the do
eft Ia iN1Hr fry of hn A AVnn 10
nists, t. in6d them to consider the encOur-
agemenL home manufactures and re-
taliatOry navigation laws as acts of pa
triOtic resistance. to British tyranny,
What a commentary 1882 reads us on the
foresight of the Southern patriots of 1887?
The Federal government, under tie power
to regulate commerce, instead of thereby
controlling and injuring the South by it's
vast ocean commerce, has regulated the
American deep-sea commerce of the mari
time States out of eXistencei At the end
of a hundred years the Democratic party
in America is now endeaY0ring to correct
the blunders and remedy evils originally
caused by foreign war and since perpet-
uated by civil war!
The science of political economy began
for English-speaking peoples with the
publication of Adam Smiths ''Wealth Of
Nations" But that publication, unfOrtu-
nately, was not made till l776, the year of
the deelaration Of the revolt, which, be-
ginning with question 0ftaXatigp, finally
severed the American colonies from the
British crown. Had Adam Smiths great
work appeared twenty years earlier, the
British Parliament might not have tried
the experiment OF ''prOtective tariff TO
it's American colonies; there might
have been no custom house frauds per-
petrated in Boston in 177476: no indict-
ment of Boston merchants orthOge fEauds;
no revolution aud no independence! Ger
tain it is that in 1856 Pitt negotiated and
concluded the reciprocity free trade treaty
between Great Britain and France which
was working such good results for the
manufacturers, traders ana cohsumers' of
both cOuntries, when the war of the
French revolution broke out In 179G, to
put all the progress and all the Industries
of Europe for years under the domination
of brute force welded by passion, and to
set up that reign of the sword under which
we lived in these United states from 1881
to 1866. i %
1t IS as startling as it is edifying to see
how war or preparation for war has al
ways in England and America led to re-
strictions on the freedom OF commerce,
navigation and trade, and fostered the
protection Ofm6nopGiies and Of class in
terests. England held that her strength
depended on her navy; that her navy de-
pended on her sailors: that her sailors
must be furnished by her mercantile ma
rine, and that the prosperity of her mer-
camille marine depended on her legislative
monopoly OF the carrying trade of England
and of her colonies. iLhis policy the United
States 'iserFilely copied in 1890. But
since Victoria ascended the British throne
the entire structure Of protective naYiga-
tion laws and protective tariff laws have
been swept away in England. The great
reform began with the repeal of the corn
laws, which was followed in 1S49 by a sub
stantial repeal q the navigation and ton
mage laws, and finally, in 1854, BY Inc
opening of the whole British. coastfng
trade TO foreign flags. The military and
fighting type of society which. Logan and
Sitting Bull admire created and. perpetual
ted restrictions on commerce and trade and /
a tariff for protection. The industrial type
of society-tQ hasten the evolution of
which Golden in England labored, vel, |
coming Peel and Gladstone as they entered /
successfully into the fruit of his labors-- /
explodes all such restrictionr.ss BORN of war /
and CT tie preparation for war. A similar |
evolution of the industrial type Of society !
ia America was retarded by the civil war !
OF 1876, but the voters in November last /
distinctly declared that the political meth |
ods of war and the brutal legislation of /
war, with all its attendant monopoIies and /
monopollsts, must cease and come to an /
ssIsal eng .-,----.-.-- :"
A BRIDGE ON BOTToNLRss MUD.-Su- |
perintendent Harahan, of the New Orleans |
and Mobile division, Louisville and Nash
vile Road, tells a Mobile Regster repor-
ter as follows about the Bay St. Louis
bridge; - -