Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1901-10-24
CITY OFFICIAL PAPER.
THURSDAY, OCT. "a, 1901
SHIP SUBSIDIES.

The Scientific American has recently
published some facts concerning ship
building on the great lakes which will
puzzle the subsidy.grabbers when they
make their next raid on Congressional
is ifanything can disquiet that peculiarly
brazen and unabashed gang OF hooters.
There are building now in lake ship
wards for ocean traffic ten steel vessels.
They are additional to the many others
built for both lake and ocean
traffic. like the feet OF four ves-
sells recently put into commission be-
tween Chicago and Hamburg. Four YES
sells are building to ply between New
York, Cuba, Porto Rico and South
America. Four others under way at
South Chicago are to carry grain between
Chicago and Liverpool. Three large
lake-built vessels built last summer are
now in service on the ocean. The Rock
efellers, lwho are interested in lake ship
yards, are testing lake-built boats in the
foreign carrying trade and expect to put
out a considerable fleet next year. The
Carnegie Company last year sent the
steamer Monkshaven, built at Conneaut,
Ohio, to Liverpool with steel billets, and
is now building fleet which will carry
ore on the lakes in summer and make
the voyage to Europe in the winter
months.
All this is done without subsidy or
protection. The lake ship-builders have
shown themselves competent to build
ships to engage in foreign trade in COM
pitition with foreign builders.
The lake shipyards are busy, too.
Nearly every one has all the orders in
hand that it can fill. 1t is straight COM
mercial business, for the battleships and
cruisers which are furnishing employ
ment to so many tide water shipyards
cannot, under our present treaty obliga-
tons, be built on the lakes.
Moreover, this new and growing in
dustry has one prodigious obstacle to
meet-an obstacle which cannot be over
come by private enterprise, but must
continue to check and restrain the
growth Of lake ship building for ocean
service until removed by governmental
action. The dimensions OF the canals
and locks which connect the lakes with
tide water are such that a vessel making
the voyage cannot be longer than 26O
feet nor draw more than IA feet. The
matter of draught is met by sending the
ships through the canals half laden and
completing the cargo at Quebec or Mon
treal, but the restriction placed on the
size OF the vessels is peremptory.
Now Senator Hanna, Senator Frye
and other prominent Republican states
men, Jealous to build up great mer-
chant marine under the United States
flag, brought measure into the last
Congress which proposed to devote some
lsO,OOO,OOO OF the peoples money to
this purpose. 1t was charged, and with
some corroborative evidence, too that this
prodigious sum was to be divided among
four corporations with which the Stand
ard Oil Company was not remotely con-
nected. And there were people who es-
timated the final cost of this subsidy
scheme at much more than $50 ,O00, O00.
But that figure will do for the present.
Now here we have the lake shipyards
building ocean.going ships without any
subsidy, and doing it in the face of the
heavy obstacle presented by the INSULT
Gent Canadian canals. II surely is not
sensible or needfu! to subsidize the coast
builders and thus aid them to destroy
the lake builders business.
But the use of the money planned for
subsidies in digging ship canal to tide
water would stimulate American ship
ping and commerce both, build up our