The Weekly Tallahasseean., 1900-11-29
WASHINGTONBUDGET
Congress to Railroad LegiSla-
tiOn Through
WILL Be BUSY SESSION
Republican Opposition to the Ship
Subsidy Steal Predicted.

ter and the right Of the minority to
i discuss the measures on which the
. House is to pass will be sharply cur
tailed in the process. Not that it
makes much difference, however, for
the House, as organized by the Re
publicans, is about as perfect ma
chine for registering the ideas of half
a dozen leaders as could well be de-
yised. Hence, there is every prom
ise that in the three weeks before the
holidays the House will dispose of a
vast amount of legislation. All the
chairmen of important committees
arriving i'll town announce their
plans to have the notable measures
of the session prepared either as soon
as Congress meets or within a few
days thereafter, and in all probability
as soon as the Presidents message
has been read, the House will settle
to hard and continuous work. Last
year the Republicans were proud of
passing the gold standard bill and
one or two appropriation bills before
the holiday recesE. This year the
DILL for the reducti bn of the war rev.
enues taxes, the bill for the reOrganl-
ton of the army, she river and har-
Dor appropriation pill, the OleOmarga-
rine bill, the Indian appropriation
bill and some OF 1.-THE appropriation
bills will probably be before the
House not later than the beginning
of the second week of the session.
1t need not be surprising if most of
these measures have been sent to the
Senate before the holidays. With
the cloture rules in force it will be
entirely feasible for the house to dis
pose of all these BILLS in two or three
I,weeks, and thus clear the decks for
&he eight or ten parge appropriation
bills that would felnain to be dis
posed of in JanuaS'v and the first half
of February.
There will, it deems, be some Op-
position to the slip subsidy steal on
the Republican side, but probably
not enough to EN- able the Democrats
to side track it. Representative
Burton, head of fhe Rivers and Har-
bors Committee, swhO is the Repre-
sentative from Sd dnator Hanna's home
city, has declared himself against it,
saving that he does not believe that
it can be passed but he stands en-
tirely alone so fir in expressing this
opinion. The rovisions of the bill
are, of course, scandalous. If
adopted, it will be adopted in the
teeth of the repdrt of the Republican
Commissioner df Navigation, who,
curiously enough, is in favor OF the
bill, although hf report contains in
every line facts hhat prove the pros
:. perity of American shipbuilding and
disprove the NECESSITY for the bill.
He says, for I'M stance, that for the
first time since the civil war the docu-
mepted tonnage of the L nited States
exceeds 5000, GOO gross tons. On
June 30. 1900, American documented
TONNAGE compriEed %, ,333 vessels of
5164 8.9 tons. Ian increase of 3O0,-
900 tons Overt the previons fiscal
wear. British shipping now amounts
to only 14,161 900 gross tons,
and the tonnage of American
shipping is THUS about one
third of that Of the great British
Empire with its far-reaching colonies
and it's splendid sea-going traditions.
The exports d the United States,
for whose carrying subsidies to
American shi iSs are so loudly de-
manded, require only about one:
fifth of the worlds tonnage, while
British IMPORTS require far greater.
amount. Finally on August 10,
1900, 68 mercHan steel steam YES
sells, aggregatisg 278,OOO tons, and
At naval vessels, $4,000 tons dis
placement, wtre building or con-
tracted for. This work taxes the
ship yards to {heir utmost, and many
other vessels kill be begun as soon
as there is ROBIN for them on the
docks. Nevertheless, the Commis,
siOner clamors for encouragement
for the shin bSilders.
Senator Dakis, of Minnesota, will
be sadly missed in the coming ses-
sion, where hE sturdy AmericaninSm
would probably have routed the at
tempt Of our Anglomanlac Secretary
OF State to: commit the United
States to British domination Of the
Nicaraguan Canal. As will be re-
called, the HhY. Pauncefote Conyen-
; ton ia moaelsa On that for the con-