The age-herald., 1901-02-03
NED BRACE TALKS ABOUT LOCAL
 AFFAIRS AND THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL

operate them on the river and we will SUD- plement your freight receipts by paying you ten cents ton on every ton of freight your boat can carry for every trip you make from Birmingham to Mobile. In other words if your boat can carry 5000 tons the city of Birmingham will pay you $500 for every trip you make or 5000 for each round trip.
 The objection to the subsidy bill pending before Congress now-the Hanna bill-the iniquitous features of it are that it pro- poses to give the great bulk of the sub sidy to the fast ships already plying be- tween New York and British ports and will give the actual heavy freight carrying ships so little that few will care to build them or establish such lines.
 have just figured out from the pending Hanna bill the discrimination as between d ship carrying steel or iron or cotton from Mobile or Pensacola to a mediterranean port and one of the fast ships from New York to Liverpool, which only carries high class and high priced freight requiring quick passage. For slow vessels of F knots speed or under the bill offers to pay each vessel one and one-half cents per ton for each hundred miles traveled up to 1500 miles, and one cent per ton for each additional hundred miles travelled for fast vessels that is 21 knot ships of 10000 tons capacity an additional amount of two and three tenth cents per ton per hundred miles is offered.
 Now, let us figure this out, twelve-kn freighter goes from Mobile to a mediter- ranean port 5000 miles distant with cargo of 1000 tons of steel rails, coal and iron. The government pays this vessel bounty or subsidy of $3750 for making the trip.
 On the same day 21-knot ship sails from New York to Liverpool, 5000 miles distant, with its cabin full of passengers and a cargo of wheat, or cotton goods, or fruit, or anything else. The government gives this vessel $10650 for the trip. And this ship may not carry but fifty per cent of it's carrying capacity of freight, taking thou sand passengers, and yet get it's full sub sidy of $10,650, whereas the freighter being slow, carries no passengers. getting no reve- nue from such and must therefore fill itself with freight to make It's trip profitable
 The bill is unfair and unjust to this sec tion. The South, and especially the Bir- mingham district, believes in encouraging a merchant marine. We need ships to carry our freight and to get them it seems the Government must encourage their building or purchase and make 1t to the interest of investors to establish lines of freight carrying ships; but this Hanna bill is too top heavy in favor of the fast pas senger lines which we already have. They may be entitled to their share, based upon tonnage; and they can earn more each year, because they can make more trips by virtue of their great speed; but they are not entitled to three times as much per trip as the ship which carries only freight. There's the niquity of this bill.
 It should be amended and made just and fair to all alike Then let it pass. But the men who are to reap fortunes from it will naturally combat such amendments and will force it through in it's present form if possible.