Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1889-05-17
Our Trade with Mexico aud south
America.

The New York Mail and Express sug
geSts in a well considered article that prof
liable food for reflection may be found by
the American people and their representa-
tlves in Congress in the fact that the gov
eminent of the Dominion of Canada has
recently agreed to measure by which a
considerable subsidy has been granted to
line Of steamships TO run fortnightly across
the Pacific ocean between the ports Of Van
couver in British Columbia and Victoria in
Australia The distance to be covered is
great, and the traffic, both in passengers
and freight, will undoubtedly be small at
the outset, and perhaps for some time
thereafter. But that it will in the end
prove advantageous to both those widely
separated dependencies of the British gov
eminent, TO the neither country, from
which the capital to inaugurate and for "a
time to carry on the enterprise is to be
largely drawn, as well as to those who in
vest their private capital in an undertaking
which is assured Of reasonable degree Of
government support would seem to admit
of no doubt
But how is it that the government of the
Domlnon-a country whose wealth and
natural resources are so vastly inferior to
those Of the United States and which is
hampered 10y public debt much greater,
proportlonately, than our own, debt al
ready burdensome and oppressive-can still
reach out and subsidize great railway and
steamship lines in the interests of her com
xsn1 L.. Il, -, l., II.
der, permit the greater portions of our vast
commerce with Europe to be conducted by
vessels carrying the flags of foreign ma
tons. and while we scarcely compete at all
Tor the trade with Mexico, the West Indies
and Central and South America
Is it not just possible that what has
proved to be good policy for Great Britain
in the past, and which is proving to be good
policy for Germany and France today,
would also prove to be good and sound pol
icy for the great American republic Up
on the face of the proposition there would
seem to he no good reason why the trade of
the United States with any or all of the
countries alluded to should not compare
iavorably, in its proportions, with that of
any European power. We produce mum
berless articles which are in great and con
slant demand 10y the people of these coun-
tries, and. owing either to favored condi-
tons Of soil and climate or to the greater
ingenuity, skill and application of our
workmen, We can produce them quite as
cheaply as they can be raised or manufac-
tured in Europe, notwithstanding the fact
that the rate of wages is considerably high
er here than there We are also much near
erto Mexico, the West Indies and the Central
American states than our European com
petitors are, and that fact ought to give us
All additional advantage.
But we have not, for many years, made
amy concerted or systematic effort to build
up our trade with those countries We
have not adopted the methods which our
keener and apparently more far seeing ri
walls long ago accepted we have permitted
ourselves 10 be bulldozed into the belief
that everything in the nature of a subsidy
to steamship lines willing to try and build
up our trade with foreign countries is un-
democratic and un American, and, in fact.
little better than legalized plumber of the
public treasury
Until our law makers take more prac-
teal, more rational and more sensible
view of these matters, it seems extremely
probable that our Mexican, West Indian
and Central and South American trade will
not only not increase in volume, but that it
will still further decline and that, instead
of becoming the great commercial nation
which our extended sea line, our chain of
magnificent harbors and the energy and in
dustry of our great population ought to
make Us, we will eventually lose not only
that small portion of the foreign carrying
trade that is still left TO us, but the market
for large proportion of our surplus prod
ucts as we'll
It is a matter which demands serious and
earnest consideration,