The San Francisco call., 1897-03-02
OUR MERCHANT MARINE.


The necessity OF adopting some of the
plans for building up our merchant
marine is made very clear. by the figures
on the subject collected by the president
of the National Association of Manufac:
turers and recently published IN his an
nual report. -.
Something over FIVE times as much OF
the imports Of the United States for the
year ending June 80, 1895, came in foreign
vessels as was brought by our own, and in
the export trade the foreign vessels car
ried eleven times as much as ours. Con-
sidering the trade with Great Britain sim
gly the figures show a contrast still more
CALLING to American pride. OF the imports 8
from that country American vessels
brought in only S8, ,116, 991, as against
$50, 349, COL handled bv foreign ships, and
of exports carried by US. there were but
s1o8, ,229, ,615, while 1896, ,632, 296 went in
alien bottoms. That rs. the American
share of Transporting. the British. trade
was only 31S per cent. With France the
proportion was a little better, being 6.56
per cent, bat with Germany it was only
one-third Of 1 per cent :.
The extent of the proportionate decrease
in our merchant marine is revealed by the
fact that in 1845 American ships carried
four-ffths of our import and export trade.
The steps in the rapid decline are; shown
thus: In 1855 American ships handled
three-quarters of the trade; in 1850 two
thirds; in 1870 a little over one-third; in
1890 we had dropped to an eighth, and in
1895 to little more than q tenth.
The rarity OF. an American vessel enter
ing the ports of the Orien is SO noticeable
that the Asiatics are. said to have derived
the impression therefrom that the United
States is not commercial nation. The
American Consul. General at Bangkok re-
ported that Of over 500 merchant. steamers
that entered Bangkok in 1894 not one was
American, and that of over 100 vessels
entering the ports Of Japan the same year
only thin ty-two bore the stars and stripes.
The record OF many important ports
show the utter disproportion between our
i'm portance as a commercial nation and
the insignifcance of our shipping. Two
striking, examples may be singled out
from the long list. The steamers that
entered Shanghai in 1896 were: British,
1888; German, AS; Swedish and Norwe-
gian, T43, and but were American. At
Canton. there were entered in 1895 only
one American vessel to contrast with 1886
British steamers, and the solitary Ameri-
can was only a sailing vessel.
That. America should not have made a
great advancement in the proportion. of
her foreign trade she carried would have
been bad enough, but to go backward at
such an enormous rate is not to be su-
pinely 'acquiesced in. To expand our
merchant marine is something more than
matter of. National pride. for on many
lines OF manufacture we have outgrown
the home markets, and facilities for export
ing in our own ships are growing more and
more necessity.
The. advantages that. other nations
give to their shipping interests must
be met by legislation adequate to
put our people on an equality of COM
petition. Careful students of this subject
differ as to the proper method in which
this is to be accomplished. but they
should get together and concur in some
definite plan to recommend to Congress,
and. Congress should no longer delay in
doing something that would encourage
the building up of a great Anne rican
marine that would bear some reasonable
proportion to our commerce.