The St. Johns herald., 1892-04-21
4 Few Subsidy Facts.

SlcCO dIc IcpIccobtON Oo DC SlVo1ei
 excited over the alleged discover
 that the Southern Pacific railroad
 subsidies the Pacific Mail Steam
 ship Company not to make compel
 ing freight rates with it. The steam
 ship company is one of the larges
 bene6ciaries of the subsidy system established by the late Republican Congress, so that it is in the posI ton of man who is taking money from two parties whose interests are opposed to each other. The Gov. ernment pays the steamship com pany subsidy to promote com merce, and more particularly to in crease the amount of traffic between South American points and our own. The railroad company pays the steamship company to make rates high enough to repress com merce between South American ports and our own, so that South American merchandise destined for our Pacific ports will have to be hauled overland by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
 There is nothing new in all this. Ten or twelve years ago it came to light that the Union and Central Pacific Railroad Company were sub- sidizing the Pacific mail steamship line not to compete with it, and were driving the sailing vessels off the Cape Horn route by charging San Francisco merchants extra rates of freight unless they bound themselves not to order goods by ship. Even in the case of the eoarsest, heaviest freights it was shown that if a merchant received them by sailing vessel the railroad company charged him so much for such freights as he had to order 10 rail that he could not do business. The Government was not then sub sidizing the steamships, but it had to an enormous extent assisted with its credit in the construction of the railroads and it was interested, or professed to be interested, in the extension of our shipping. And yet the railroad companies were hiring the steamers not to promote commerce by making low freight rates and were driving the Ameri- can sailing vessels from the sea by a boycott.
 Now the situationis only changed by the tact that the steamship line is receiving large bounty from the
 
 Government to assist it in extend ing our South American commerce, while is is receiving another large bounty from the railroad company to do nothing of the kind. It is taking money from both sides and serving the railroad company be- cause it's subsidy from the latter would stop the moment it ceased to serve it, while it depends on politi- cal "pull" and the larcenious ten dencies of the Republican party for the getting and keeping of it's Gov ernment subsidy. What it gets from the railroad company it has to earn whatit gets from the peo- pie of the United States is a free gift.
 A couple of years ago, while the Brazil Mail Steamship Company | was lobbying here to geta subsidy, | ostensibly to aid it in expanding our South American Commerce, it was shown in consular reports, pub lished by the State Department, that at Brazilian ports where it did not encounter the competition of other steamship lines it was charg- ing oextortionate rates and killing our commerce by it's greed.
 Another line that is receiving subsidy from the Government is the line running steamers to Havana. At the very best that it can do it takes this line eighteen hours ,longJ CT to carry mails from New York to Havana than is necessary when the ,,,o.lO oo hx, vvov, Of Toro,o n ro,,4o |