The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1901-02-21
/ SHIP SUBSIDIES.
Ex-CONGRESSMAN JOHN DE WITT
WARNER EXPOSES THE DEFECTS
OF THE PENDING BILL.

Protested Aims of the Bill Are
Shams-SIOw Ships Useless Fer Aux
Futile Provisions For American
Seamen = The Shipbuilding Which
the Bill Is Supposed to Encourage
Is Already Largely Under Construc-
ton or Ordered
In the current issue of The Review
of Reviews ex-Congressman John De
| Witt Warner of New York sets forth
the following objections to the ship
subsidy bill:
OF course the bill pretends that its
authors are concerned for the farms.
factories, mines, forests and fisheries
of the United States" and for the pro-
vision Of vessels, officers, engineers,
machinists, electricians and seamen"
for United States commerce and de-
tense.
Framed as 1t is exclusively by those
who propose to hire themselves at
their own price and who did not admit
to their elaboration any representative
either Of agriculture, wage earners
seamen or our navy or war depart
ment, we should expect to find Just
what we find here-that the professed
aims Of the bill are shams set I'D to
distract attention from the raid plan
ned.
AS to export trade, late amendment
expressly provides that to get full sub
sidy ship need carry out but half a
cargo load; while she gets the main.
or speed" subsidy though she do not
carry pound of cargo. Furthermore.
the highest subsidies are specifically
given to the classes of ships that not
merely do not, but cannot, carry much
export cargo but which export" tour
lists and import" immigrants-the In |
ternationaPs fast passenger steamers.
Tor example, getting IL times the sub
shy IN proportion to cargo that does
standard freighter.
The vessels now building by our gov
eminent average about % knots speed
or all ships in existence that would
uraW thls subsidy there are but four
ABOVE ~ knots, and it's friends admit
that no others will be built 1t is plain
now useless would be transports and
cruisers that could neither fight nor
run and how fatally. would fast war
vessels be impeded by the company of
slow ones. Furthermore, the sbips
mat would get most subsidies are al
ready under mail contracts, which put
mem at the disposal of our government
lnuer requirements more rigid than
by the pending bill-whicb
expressly permits cancellation of pres.
mt contracts.
1t is ludicrous to estimate that
against the 100000 per anpum
'houid De onset any considerable sum
or the free mail carriage provided by
ne Dill. AS noted, the bill induces no
Of new ships over II
nous, and its inducements for sneed
TOP at Il knots on test run. This is
o far behind the practical needs that
nough the International COMPANY
wnich would get the greatest share of {
peed subsidy received last year two
nlrds OF the total paid by the United
'ates Tor carrying foreign mails from
'ew YORK, the postoffice had to hire G
'ritlsh and German steamers at half I
ne cost to carry three or four times I
ne mail it committed to the Inter- t
atonal. Nothing could be more C
than the right to have mails p
irried free by ships already too sI6w p
De trusted with them. r
AS to American sailors, the bill nro- c
ldes that subsidized ships ~ have p
1e-fourth their crew citizens or In s.
nded citizens; (2) that one American e
~ be employed for every 1000 tons it
lpping, and (3) that fishermen serving a
ships subsidized for the year at 80 b
II ton' In case they run three months) b.
given 81 per month while actually m
1ployed. AS to these: O is nullified al
proviso that If the master cannot n
asonabiy get one-fourth Americans M
need not; ~ is made worthless by m
oViso that the American bow need liz
paid only what his work is worth. l.
as to (3), there being no minimum st
'ge, our government would simply re
IL OF ordinary wages for which tho Of