The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-09-13

serious the injury inflicted upon American
commerce and other industries inseparably
with it by this wholesale destruction of the
American carrying trade, the remarks
made by Hon. w. G. p. BRECKENRIDGE. oil
Kentucky, fully illustrate. The gentleman
said: 'Thirty- five years ago the American
flag was seen in every port. In our bot
toms going cargoes paid freight
to our ship owners and incoming cargoes
added to the profits of the trip. Our in
surance companies during those years OBJ
tanned the premiums on those cargoes. Our
warehousemen received the commission for
their storage. Our merchants made the
profits on the exchange of these goods.
We sold in the foreign markets IN which
we were able to buy. We sold at reason
able profit, we bought at a fair price. The
material which we obtained in exchange
for our manufactured product we turned
into new product and our laborers obtained
the profit of the wages thereby occasioned.
And so, year by year, as this commerce
grew our wealth accumulated.
''All this has been changed. Partly it has
been caused by the substitution of the iron
vessel for the wooden vessel; but largely
caused by system of taxation which rem
dered it impossible for an American to carry
on trade with foreigner. You cannot sell
to advantage where you cannot buy at a
profit. While barter in the old mode,
where one man traded his grain for another
mans cloth, has apparently passed away,
yet all the commerce of the world is
then. No man can buy unless some one
will buy from him that which he has to
sell. No man can sell unless he can bug
from the person to whom he sells, directly
or Indirectly. Besides that, there is q
profit which is enormous from the mere
handling, If l may so express it, Of trade.
AS civilization increases, in the mere
bringing to the consumer that which the
producer has made and returning to the
purchaser that which the consumer has
paid there is large profit. He who trans
ports these goods, he who insures them, he
who guarantees the credit involved in the
transaction, he who manages the business
of the exchange, becomes as necessary as
the weaver or the manufacturer, and must
have his share OF the cost of the production
and profit of the transaction. We ought
to own the ocean: with our mineral re-
sources and our forests and our extraordi-
narily long sea coasts, with our interior
lakes and our mighty rivers, we ought to
have been the ship-building, hip-owning,
and ship-carrylng nation OF the world.
Into our hands ought the commerce
OF the world to have naturally
drifted; into our Golfers ought to have
been gathered the profits of these ex-
changes 1t was ours thirty-fve years
ago; not all'of it, but more than 70 per
cent. of it, and the great bulk of it ours po
teDtially. We have lost 1t. We own no
ships except those that are in our coast
wise trade with such exceptions that they
scarcely need to be spoken OF. Our own
exports are transported in foreign bottoms
under foreign flags, and all the profits OF
their carrying in every way, and the re-
turning cargo of imports for which they
are sold, go TO foreigners. Millions upon
millions which ought to have belonged to
US have been literally given by us-thrown
into the lap of foreigners by our own &c
| tion."
To remedy this great evil the Danish
ment of our commercial fleet from the
high seas-our protectionist President
would rebuild the fleet and re establish il
through government aid by bounty and
subsidy. Would not reason dictate that il
be rebuilt and re established by that more
enlightened system of commerce which
| gave it to US in the first places