The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-01-16

put them under the English fng-a
measure precisely like the one that is
now pending in the Congress of the
recommendation and passed free ship
law. "Well," asked Mr.. Deering, what
was the result?n and then he goes on to
tell what it was in these words:
We were building ships from Eastport
to New York. The English bought our
ships and soon they were seen every
where under the British flag. Inc
committee Was right The scheme was
successful and England retained her COM
mercial supremacy. That was not all.
The ships had to come back to GreaG
Britain to he repaired. The English and
Scotch shipbuilder was enabled to see
tine superiority of our models and thus
adopt them. Then they commenced to
build iron and steel vessels on the same
model that they had taken from us;
with iron and steel they built ships OF
greater speed and more buoyancy and
with such lasting virtues that some OF
them are alive today, while your wooden
ships are all gone. That is from 1855 to
1860. when the British commenced to
build the tramp steamer which, more
than anything else, has wiped the
American ship from the face of the
ocean, We could not build them on ac-
count of the extreme cost, and SO the
wooden ship OF that day has gone out of
existence.
Now did what Mr.. Deering thinks hap
pened actually take place? 1t was in
1S49 that Parliament passed the free
ship bill and it's operation began fmms-
diately. If this free ship bill was the
panacea which Mr.. Deeriug thinks, then
England's shipping ought to have begun
to increase Immediately and that of the
United States to decline. But tie reverse
was exac ly the case. For three years
after the passage of the act the merchant
marine OF the United States increased as
compared with that of Great Britain more
than ever before. During the six years
following the passage OF this act the
merchant marine of the United States
increased 1877, 1856 tons, and that of
Great Britain only 1914, S25 tons. During
this six years American shipping enjoyed
it's highest prosperity. But lest the fig
ures may not be sufficient to show thai
Mr.. Deering is wrong when he attributes
the increase of English shipping and the
decline of our own to this act of 1S49, we
present the testimony of one of the
strongest promoters of that act, Mr.. W.
D. Lindsay, who in speaking OF its first
years operation says:
Our ship owners naturally viewed with
great alarm the rapid strides made by
American shipping. Nor were their fears
allayed by reference to the Board OF
~.,l, 4 or
while the increase OF British shipping
had in the year previous to repeal been
1893, 555 tons, there had been decrease
in the year after repeal of 1870, SIG tons.
Our position appeared, therefore, critical;
and had 1t not been for the resources we
held within ourselves, and the indonlita-
BILE energy of our people, foreign ship
ping might then have gained an ascen-
dency which might not afterward have
been easily overcome. We had an ad-
vantage which our great competitors did
not possess. We had iron in abundance,
and about this period we were specially
directing our attention to the construc-
ton of iron ships to be propelled by the
screw.
Now here is the very strongest kind of
| testimony that it Wac not the free ship
| law that recovered for England it's SUI
premacy, but her own resources-re-
sources of iron and coal and the energy
of her people. It was the invention Of
the iron steamship that recovered for
England, and enabled her to maintain,
her supremacy. Until that came the
British merchant marine was declining
and continued to decline in spite of her
free ship law. What then becomes of
Mr.. behring's appeal TO the United States
to follow England's course on the
ground that it built up her merchant
marine?
History gives no account of any nation
that ever built up great merchant
marine that did not build its own ships.
The nation that buys is entirely at the
mercy of the nation that sells. Does
anybody believe that if the United States
should threaten English supremacy by
purchasing English built ships that Eng
land would not devise some way to pre-
vent her own shipbuilders contributing
to our supremacy? With our ability to
build ships gone does anyone suppose
that England would not interpose some
obstacle to the purchase of hers that
would handicap US in the race?
MEMCDADEP pINTIIPES