The Van Buren press., 1899-02-11
A SEVERE REPORT.
Personal Arrangement Of the Hanna
Payne Bill. Characterized as OH.
spring Of Bounty Beggers.

The minority report on the Hanna
Payne shipping bill as filed in the house
of representatives is severe and some
what personal arraignment of the meas
ure and those who would receive bonn
ties under it. The report says: This
bill Is one that was prepared and brought
to congress by a voluntary committee
of ship owners and ship builders rep.
resenting the gentlemen who will re-
ceive the bounty which the bill proposes
to give from the public treasury. The
bill as reported to the house is in almost
the exact form and grants to a penny
the bounties demanded by the gentlemen
who are to receive them. The bill Is
therefore naturally and entirely salts
factory to the interests which have
organized this movement to secure the
vast sums carried in the bill as graf
uity to be used in carrying on their
private business and enlarging the
profits thereof.
'sThe bill provides not simply for
bounties, but for bounties which once
granted cannot thereafter be taken
away. If this bill be passed the con-
tracts will be quickly made and once
entered into no future congress can in
honor break them or refuse to make the
necessary appropriations to pay them.
To do so would look like repudiating a
national obligation.
The twenty-year bounties thus pro
vided are put in the bill in the language
of so many cents. but when the arith-
metical calculation is made to find how
big these bounties by cents will prove
to be when the time comes to pay them,
we find that they must be figured in
tens of millions Of dollars. By care
full and conservative estimate we find
that the government will be obligated
by the contracts likely to be entered
into during the first twelve months
under this bill to pay bounties amount
ing to more than $l65, 900, 600, and this
includes only the shipping now in sight,
and the shipping which must be built
will cost probably not less than $400,
900 900.
.'Of this enormous bounty the lion 5
share will go to the International Navi-
CATION Company, This company will
receive in the aggregate more than S57,
900 900. This strikes us as monstrous
proposition. In this bill it is provided
that man who builds a great and
speedy ocean steamer shall be paid
bounties in twenty years amounting to
twice the whole cost of the boat.
1T must be conceded that bounties
are repugnant to the spirit of our free
institutions. under which all citizens
should have equal rights and no special
privileges should be granted. 1t is inn
possible to give bounty to everybody
and to all forms of industry and it is
manifestly unequal and unjust to tax
the farmers. carpenters, blacksmiths,
masons. merchants. railroad men min
ers and woodsmen of the country to pay
a bounty to ship owners for every mile
they sail upon the sea. To build up
once more great merchant marine
should be one of the patriotic ambitions
of American craftsmanship. 1t can be
done by taking off the shackles and Civ
ing American enterprise, industry and
American seamanship an equal chance.
Everything needed in bnilding and
equipping a ship should be admitted
free of customs duty. Ship supplies
should also be on the free list. Every
American citizen should be free to sup
ply ships for use in foreign carrying
trade wherever he can find them cheap
est and best Tonnage taxes should be
abolished.
In conclusion the report says: This
bill is the off spring of mere bounty
beggars and should be repudiated by
representatives of both political parties.
1t is vicious in its principle. 1t is not
necessary for the rehabilitation of our
merchant marine to give hundreds of
millions of the people $ tax money. The
bill is wholly unjustifiable