The record-union., 1891-01-15
THE SHIPPING BILL.

The outlook is that the shipping bill
will reach and pass the Senate prior to
the dominant party surrendering power
in the Lower House Of Congress to the
Democrats. If it is passed and the bill
becomes a law, it viii reflect credit upon
Congress and the Administration.
Scarcely any measure before Congress
Ii more important. We must more
conserve our export trade and broaden
reciprocity. One of the means to these
ends is the sending of the flag in advance
of trade. From 1860 to 1889 England
paid to promote her shipping interests,
more than $2S3, us, 1888, an average OF
nearly $l0,O00,0O0 year. Her extra
grants in 1889 were S4,269,OO0 alone, in
addition to which the British Board OF
Admiralty has made large special grants
from the special mercantile fund in aid OF
British shipping. What the United
States does in q like direction is scarcely
worthy of mention.
1t is impossible for American shipping
to contest with bottoms so heavily subsi-
died as are English ships without the
fostering aid of the Government. We
ship abroad now, according to the calcu-
lations of the Chicago Inter Ocean, about
$200, 0,000,0 600 of Western farm products,
but not 10 per cent. of them 60 upon
American bottoms. The same paper fig
ures that as we pay Sl25, 900, coo year for
freight and passenger traffic across the
Atlantic, it really takes about all the sur
plus grain of the country to foot the for
eign shipping bills.
The problem before us is, How shall we
make the greater part of our ocean trans
portation American? Up to 1916 80 per
cent. of our foreign trade was done under
the American flag, and even up to 1850
we held about rs per cent. Of it, whereas
now less than II per cent. represents our
carrying interest. 1t will not profit us to
inquire into the causes of the decline-it
is enough to know what the present stu
alton is. What we should do now, with
the cheap inland freights we have is to
promote salt water American carriage.
The American farmer should insist upon
his right to have his exports carried upon
American bottoms, not only because it is
a direct saving to him, but because it has
the immediate tendency to enlarge ex-
ports upon a basis of reciprocal exchange
whereby we send out that we produce tc
best advantage to nations that do not pro-
duce it to best advantage, and grant in
return to such countries the right to bring
in that they produce to the best advantage
but which we do not.
The shipping bill as a law must have
the effect to enlarge popular intelligence
upon the subject of reciprocal exchanges.
But we also conserve by such measures
American industry in building,
whether we admit free metals and other
materials entering into the construction
or not. But passing the question of the
free importation of raw materials for
ship-building as Il matter for subsequent
discussion, the whole country ought to
free itself from the prejudices which cling
about the word subsidy, and favor use OF
the surplus in promoting All American
merchant marine. We ought TO go out
and send out in our own ships under our
own flag, and revive our shipping inter-
estS by subyention, postal contract, OF
whatever other term may be applied to
aiding the. upbuilding of AN American
merchant marine, which exports will
follow and reciprocity accompany, while
the conservation of home industry viii at
the same time be promoted, since in ship
building but about 5 per cent. Of the cost
is raw material and So per cent. is labor.