Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-03-24
SCANDINAVIAN FREE SHIPS.
Advantages of Free Trade Illustrated
Pertinent Questions Asked.


Pertinent Questions Asked.
Nearly every country produces raw
materials which cannot be worked up in
that country, but must be exported to
other countries, either because the latter
have better facilities for production, or
they possess or are more accessible to
other raw material necessary for COM
pleting the finished products. Consider
the shipbuilding industry, for instance.
Great Britain possesses coal and iron,
which are very bulky articles, and there
fore very expensive in transportation as
we'll as handling. Scandinavia possesses
timber, copper and other raw materials
which are used in building vessels of every
description. Scandinavia uses many ships
for its comparatively large commerce,
yet undoubtedly most of its vessels are
made in Great Britain. For that pur-
pose much Of the copper and timber is
exported to Great Britain.
The Scandinavian governments see the
wisdom and the advantage of allowing
materials needed for the building of YES
sells to be exported to neighboring
country, Of permitting it's shipowners to
buy their vessels there, and of permitting
its shippers to make use of ships partly
built from raw materials which it pro-
duces itself, but built as we'll as owned
in q foreign country. The Scandinavian
governments know that it is cheaper and
more advantageous for their people to
sell their raw materials used in ship
building and to have the ships they need
built, and even owned, by nation where
the principal ingredients abound, where
the facilities for building vessels are
greatest, and where consequently ships
can be built cheapest.
But if the lawgivers of the Scandina-
Wan peninsula should resolve that it is
better for their countries to themselves
build the ships they need, and conse-
quently should lay high duty upon
foreign built craft in order to encourage
and stimulate the building of vessels in
their own country, what would be the
consequence?
Scandinavia would have to import
most Of the materials, and among them
very bulky ones, used for building YES
sells, and at q high cost of transporta-
ton. The facilities for shipbuilding
there are not SO great as where the COM
mercial fleets of all the nations of the
world congregate, and the time neces-
sary to build such vessels will be great
er. The thousand and one little things
needed in equipping vessel must also
be imported from the country where
they abound, or else must be manufac-
tured at higher cost of production.
The consequence of the protective law
will then be that Scandinavia does in
deed build its own commercial vessels,
but at what great expense! The greater
cost Of the ships will put them entirely
out Of competition for the carrying trade
Of other nations with the cheaper built
vessels Of their competitors. Scandina-
Wan merchants, being perhaps by law
obliged to ship their goods in the high
priced vessels of their countrys make,
will have to pay higher prices for ship
ping their goods, and SO cannot compete
with like products from other countries.
Or, if the law of the land does not oblige
them to ship their merchandise in the
high priced vessels Of their own coun-
try's make, they will pass them by and
ship in the cheaper vessels Of other ma
tons, because freight rates with them
are cheaper, thus letting the ships of
their own country lay idle or forcing
them to take as low rates as their foreign
competitors, in which case the Scandina-
Wan shipowners would conduct losing
business, and the government would be
obliged to assist them with bounties or
subsidies.
Now, the protectionists there might
point to the one great industry-perhaps
to the many unsatisfactory built up,
but they would have to overlook the ruin
their unwise policy had caused to others.
They would have, moreover, to answer
the very momentous question, "Who pays
for the industries our country formerly
could not maintain"
For, as has been shown, wherever the
luxury Of protection Is INDUCED in, the
artificial industries always exist, may
even thrive, at the expense of the whole
nation, while the unprotected industries
must foot the bill.-Dingman Versteeg
in Tariff Reform.