Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-12
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE prspArcu.,

WASHINGTON, July 11.-Apparently
the Democrats in the Senate have already
commenced their feat of talking against time
to delay the passage of the tariff and Fed
eral election bills. The shipping bills were
under consideration, and Senator Gibson
was the first speaker. He argued against
the proposed subsidies for ships, but IN
favor of moderate postal subsidies. He
spoke of the importance of establishing a
line of steamships to trade with the Congo
country, of building Government dry
dock at New Orleans and of reforming the
tariff by admitting commodities from the
South American States at lower rates of
duties.
But there was nothing, he said, more de-
structive Of the shipping interests than an
attempt to tax the farmers and producers of
the country in order to supply bounties for
ship builders. 1t was not by such means
that the United States had once occupied a
leading position on the ocean, 1t was by
freedom, not by restraint; by self-reliance,
not by bount!es or subsidies.
AN APPEAL TO FRYE.
He appealed to the Chairman of the Com
rigidity of the policy; to allow ships to be
purchased abroad and sailed under the
American flag; to take off the tariff duties
from materials. supplies and outfits that go
into the construction and sailing of ships,
and to accept as compromise the policy of
giving postal subsidies to American built
vessels.
Mr.. Coke said that if he had to frame a
bill to place the American merchant marine
on an equality with that of other nations he
would not commence with taxing the people
for the payment of subsidies, but he would
take hold of the shipping laws of the United
States and repeal them. He would allow to
American citizens at least the same privi-
,leges that foreigners had in American ports,
of getting their ships where he could buy
them cheapest.
He would also so modify the tariff laws
that they would not seal up the ports of the
United States against the importation of for
eign goods. He protested against the bill
because it proposed to tax the people for the
purpose Of building up an industry that was
impossible, under existing legislation. The
plan proposed was Utopian one-a vision
ary one.
AN IMPOSSIBLE FEAT.
1t was simply impossible, under the ex-
listing tariff and navigation laws, to build
up the foreign carrying trade of the q nited
States. Instead OF subsidizing ships, the
remedy for the trouble was to let down the
bars, to take away the wall, to reduce the
tariff
Mr.. Coke went on to declaim against the
injurious effects of the illiberal tariff law,
and said that if retaliation were resorted to
in Europe Gas was now threatened), that re-
taliation would fall upon the farmers of the
United States. While the United States
was piling up obstruction to trade, the pend
ing bill proposed to pay subsidies for men
to go out and hunt up foreign trade.
Mr.. Vest offered as a substitute for the
bill as to the American merchant marine, a
provision for free ships, to be used only in
the foreign carrying trade, not in the coast
wise or lake trade. The bills went over
without action after an unsuccessful effort
by Mr.. Frye to have an agreement to vote
upon them tomorrow. The Democrats evil
IDENTIFY intend to debate the measures for
some time longer.