Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-05-14
Daily kennebec 3ournaI.
seth CONGRESS
Continued from page -

remarkable increase of our shipbuilding
and says in part:
Our foreign trade, then, is increas-
ing with wonderful rapidity and our
shipbuilding industry is remarkably
prosperous without subsidy. why,
then, should the whole country De
taxed to provide gratuities for indus
tries which are now prosperous and
which have every prospect of contlnu-
ing to be more and more prosperous?
Even if our foreign commerce were
in a declining rather than in larry
prosperous condition, it is Impossible
that the present bill would give relief
and for the following reasons: Be
cause subsidies are graded according
to the speed and capacity of ships and
are more than twice as high per ton
for the swift passenger steamers which
carry but little cargo, as for ordinary
freight steamers, which carry so or 90
per cent. of our exports. The subsidy
therefore, if it effects rates at all. will
affect passenger rather than freight
rates.
LAS only about 5 per cent. of the total
tonnage of the worlds shipping is sub
sidized and as nearly all of the present
subsidy goes to passenger and mail
steamers, the hopelessness Of trying by
subsidy to lower freight rates and in
crease commerce is apparent. Unlimit-
ed subsidy would be necessary to lower
general freight rates If any one coun-
try attempts by subsidy to scure lower
rates the subsidy must go to all ships
tl,s
ment the few subsidized ships lower
rates for one country, the unsubsidized
ships Oramp steamers, etc., will with
draw to other service and rates for
this particular country will go back to
the worlds level. Hence it is practi-
cally beyond the ability of any one
country to materially reduce by sub
sidy its ocean fright rates and in this
way to increase its foreign trade.
THE bill does not sufficiently provide
for subsidies based upon the amount OF
freight carried nor does it require any
decrease in freight rates. 1t cannot be
shown from the history of the subsi-
dies that they ever materially lowered
freight rates or increased the COM
merce of the countries granting them.
Trade conditions and trade theories
fix the rates which shippers will pay
and which ship owners can get Meth
er does the history Of subsidies show
that any country has ever built up its
merchant marine in this way. Our ex-
perience with the Collins, Brazil and
Pacific Mail lines is the present eXper-
fence of France and Italy and the past
experience of all other countries which
have given real subsidies.
LAS the government could not under
the proposed law. take American ships
for cruisers or transports on any more
favorable terms than 1t can now obtain
them. viz. h. paying for them all they
are worth. it will on this score receive
nothing in return for its lavish subsidy
expenditures. Neither is there anything
in the bill which would provide American
seamen for for our national defence. In
no way, then. would this bill provide for
the national defence. On the contrary,
by draining 100000 year from our
treasury. it weakens our national defence
by taking money which might otherwise
be invested in more ships or in trans
ports. provisions, ammunition. etc. in
case of war. Such large amount Of sub
sidy property put at the disposal Of tht
few who benefit by this bill cannot but
tend to unite even more closely than now
the great ship building. ship owning and
railroad interests concerned in this
by the time these few interests bring
In their foreign-owned ships and get
their ships now being built into the sub
sidy race, the 50 600. 600 limit will undOubt-
edly be reached. Hence it will be t.
their interest to combine to stop COMPETE
ton and prevent their subsidy rates and
profits from declining. We believe that
such a combination would be completed
soon after the passage OF tins bill,
I'VE place no faith in the ANTITRUST
amendment. All the federal and state
antitrust laws now in existence have
proven futile and have not lessened the
rapid growth of trusts. We see no reason
for thinking that this antitrust amend
ment would prove more effective.
by this bill. which processes TO be in
tended to increase the expectation OF
American produce, the government is
asked to pay to the stockholders of a sin
gle steamship line, $l,5@,0o0 year for
carrying abroad in its four first-claSs pas
senger ships. not American products. but
American tourists, who can afford t.
travel and spend their money in Europe
That is. the government Is asked to pay,
not for the expectation Of American
produce hut for the expectation OF Amer
lean customers"
The report contends that even if sub
sides are UNSUITABLE in building up an en-
terprise. such as the Pacific railroads,
yet there is no justification for "a reward
to existing lines As showing the pro
portions Of the proposed subsidy, it Is
stated that $50 coo Il year CONSTITUTES
interest upon $3.50 900 ,GOo,0H at the rate
now yielded by our government bonds,
and it is urged that the government
could better afford to use this aggregate
to build ships and give them away than
70 make the donations provided in this
F. bill"
1t is stated that $4,000 would go to
ships over % years old. and therefore en-
courage the running of these old sh1ps
for the sake of subsidy, until they go u
the bottom with crew and cargo.
The report, while it does not advocate
the free ship theory. points out that in its
Investigations II found that every nation
except the United States allowed its citi-
zens TO purchase ships where they
pleased. In answer to the proposition
that other nations are increasing their
shipping by subsidies. the report points
out that Great Britain, which has the
largest shipping, subsidies less than
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