Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-02-25

49,
WASHINGTON, D. c. Queen News
Stand. National Hotel.
THE ENEMY OF AMERICAN SHIP
PING.
1t is not subsidy Or bounty that
American shipping needs to make it
supreme on the high seas as 1t once
was, but merely fair play and an equal
show with its foreign rivals for cheap
raw materials.
In 1889 the House of Representatives
appointed a committee to investigate
the cause of the decline OF our ship
ping interests. This committee held
sessions in all parts of the country,
and took a great deal of testimony. 1T
reported in favor of subsidies. But
this demand did not come from the
shipbuilders, as the following from the
testimony of John Roach and Charles
H. Cramp shows. John Roach, in CIV
ing the causes of the decline of Amer
lean shipbuilding, said:
America has lost her commerce, and
what has she obtained in exchange for it?
Simply the right of a few men to charge
nine dollars per ton, in gold, on the i'm
portation of pig iron. Pig iron is the basis
Of all other metals connected with the
making and repairing of ships. There has
been a revolution in s~hip-building, and
iron is the material from which they are
now built. The high cost of iron produced
Inv the tariff ,1pon If is one Of the nrinci-
pal difficulties our commerce has to con-
tend with. l did not come here to ask a
bounty. 1 came here to tell you that,
while all other articles of American pro-
duce are protected to a great extent, there
is no protection for American ships. If
Congress will take off all the duties from
American iron, reducing it to the price
of foreign iron, then we are prepared to
compete with foreign ship-builders. The
labor question is misstated; We are pre-
pared to meet that difficulty. and to ask
no further legislation on the subject"
Charles H. Cramp said in reply to a
question by Mr.. Morrill, as to the aver
age rate of duty on materials entering
into the construction of ships:
About 40 per cent; and if our ship
hue COuiu Dt Itilt GU lIOIll lIdl, liItS
could compete successfully with foreign
builders. The difference in the cost of
labor would be overcome by the superior
ity of American mechanics
Last year in the House committee
hearings on the subsidy bill. Mr.. Nixon
testified that the steel entering into
shipbuilding was really Il of reach
Of the American %shipbuilder on ac-
count of the tariff. He testified:
I'm England steel can be bought for
something less than s35 per ton. and here
it may be that we lave to pay $50 a ton"
Mr.. Fitzgerald, of Massachusetts,:
where can you buy steel for sS5 per
ton?"
Mr.. Nixon: 'In England
Mr.. Fitzgerald: How do you account
for the fact. then, that American steel is
sold abroad?'
Mr.. Nixon I'VE sell it over there
Mr.. Fitzgerald: And you have to pay
$50 for it here?'
Mr.. Nixon: Two sixty a pound the
other day! You can see there is quite a
difference
The progress of work on shipbuild-
ing in the United~States." said Chief
Austin of the Bureau of Statistics to
the House committee last August.
has been retarded, because makers
of steel materials required a higher
price from the American consumers
than they did from the foreign con-
sumers for substantially similar pro-
ducts"
1t is thus clearly shown that the real
enemy of American shipping is the
trust-fostering tariff, which permits
he steel trusts TO extort from Ameri-
can consumers double the prices at
which they sell the same materials to
foreign shipbuilders. And this, to-
gether with our navigation law which
prevents Americans from buying ships
abroad and sailing them under the
American flag, is what prevents our
nag from being supreme on the high
seas as it used to be before this
monopoly-breeding and grossly unfair
system was adopted.
IF steel rails, for example" contin-
ued Nh. Austin, demonstrating the
folly and short-sightedness of the high
tariff policy, sell al Pittsburg for S35
per ton for months in succession for
home consumption, while the foreign
consumer is purchasing them for S22
or s24 per ton, the domestic market is
sure to order no more than it is oblig-
ed to have for the time being. In the
long run such a policy is short-sighted,
because it puts an embargo on the ex-
pansion of investments in enterprises
requiring iron and steel. 1t arrests
construction projects at home, while
1t stimulates construction abroad"
And Mr.. Austin thus forcibly stated a
truth which lies At the bottom Of the
whole argument and b the keynote to
the sitnatksns 'ZAsrs = soaething