The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1901-12-14
Gage on Ship Subsidies.
From the PhIIadeIphla ledger. Dec. 8.

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While President Roosevelt, in his mes
sage, favored the extension of our merchant
marine and mentioned the assistance given
by other nations to their merchant ship
ping, he made no definite recommendations
touching ship subsidies. Secretary Gage,
however, distinctly commits himself to the
advocacy Of the establishment of a system
of graded bounties upon the mileage navi
gated by American vessels while engaged
in the foreign carrying trade. His argu-
ment is that
1--WE build few ships for foreign trade; it is
desirable that we should have many. We
have very few ships under the flag in for
eign trade; it is desirable that we should
have many. -
Secretary Cages proposition is that the
people of the United States shall tax them
selves for the benefit of ship builders and
ship owners. He declares that the obsta
Giles to the natural growth of ocean carriage
in American bottoms are the relative cost
of building ships here and in Great Britain,
(which in time will be overcome, and
the relative pay of crews on American and
on foreign ships. Herecommends that In
legislation upon the subject
Congress shall keep in view the fact that
the expedient is temporary, and that prompt
results are desired .
Navigation bounties, he says, are justl-
fable only by the present conditions, ''by
the certainty that they will not long be re-
quired, and by the fact, conceded by
our maritime rivals, that they will pro-
duce the results we desire. In all OF his
assertions respecting the ship subsidy ques-
ton, it will be noted that Secretary Gage
is cocksure and optimistic. The granting
of bounties is but "a temporary expedient,
he says. This is contrary to all experience
in the United States. Whenever a favored
interest has secured, directly or indirectly,
largess from the Federal Treasury or from
the people, it has insisted not merely upon
the continuance of the policy, but upon
progressive liberality. The Secretary of
the Treasury claims that our rivals concede
that the Introduction of ship subsidies will
produce the ''results we desire. let he
announces that foreign Governments now
contribute about $50, 900, 900 annually to
their merchant ships for national servi-
ces, usually in the form of payment for
carving the mails. Even if we concede
that this is subsidy, is it not probable
that with the Inauguration of American
bounties the foreigners would meet the
competition by augmented subsidies, and
that, in turn, the American ship owners
would clamor for additional appropriations
by Congress? Let not Secretary Gage de-
lude himself with the idea that the ship
subsidy is temporary expedient. = The
policy once begun would be perpetuated so
long as the ship owners controlled Congress,
and this constitutes one of the chief dangers
of making NAVIGATION bounties distinctive
policy of the Republican party.
The Secretary of the Treasury admits
that the relative cost of building ships here
and in Great Britain will be in time over
come. He further comedies that
during the past fiscal year the output of
steel steamers in the United States has ex-
ceeded all previous records During the
current fiscal year the tonnage of ocean
steel steamers under construction is double
that of last year. The number of steamers
of the largest types building from similar
plans is especially encouraging for the
future of shipbuilding.
These admissions furnish an unanswera-
BILE argument why the country should not,
at this time, enter upon policy of divert
ing large sums of money from the Federal
Treasury to class that is rapidly attaining
prosperity through the natural evolution of
| trade.