The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-02-11
Why We Need Ship Subsidy
Bill,

| " URING the seventeen years
that Thomas L. Heenan has
| 49, been United States consul at
Odessa he has never seen the
United States flag at the masthead of
u traffic steamer
Consul General Hamilton King, of
Bangkok, Siam, says: "There has not
| been vessel of any description flying
the flag Of the United States in this
port since 1896, when an American gum
boat visited Bangkok"
Consul John Fl. Grout, of Malta, says:
| Buyers of American goods here are
| giving increasing preference in the
matter of shipment to the direct line
| OF steamers between New York and
Malta, and to this fact is due not q
| little of the enlarged local demand. In
| the days when there was no direct
line and transhipment was obligatory
American articles were hard to find. A
direct line steamer now about due
from New York, is bringing q record
| cargo" This gives us an idea Of the
immense increase Of our sales abroad
which would follow the opening of SUBJ
sidized lines of steamers to the many
favorable points of trade.
Consul John f.. kehl, of Stettin, Ger
many, says: The exports from the
United States to Germany for the year
1900 amounted to 100000 tons. / have
no figures to show the nationality of
the vessels conveying this immense
cargo, but I am certain that American
bottoms did not carry $4,000 tons, and
that q conservative estimate would give
German bottoms thirds of the
whole. The 100000 tons, if estimated
at an average freight rate of SO per
ton, would show $9.O00OO0 paid by
American exporters to German ship
owners during 1900"
We pay out about $2O0,O 900 yearly
to foreigners for the ocean carving OF
over ninety per cent. of the goods we
sell abroad. This for one year would
pay the proposed ship subsidies for
nearly 100 years. AS our friend Wal
ter j. Ballard, Il thorough student or
this subject, says in Il letter in the
Troy, n Y, Times:
IF Senator Frye's bill passes we
shall have an American built, American
owned and American navlgated Pacific
weekly mail service to Hawaii. the
Philippines, Japan, China and Hong
Kong and Il fortnightly service to Pago
Pago, New Zealand and Australia. On
the Atlantic it will give us semi-weekly
mail services to Jamaica, Havana and
Europe, weekly to Mexico, once in
ten days to Venezuela and fortnightly
to Brazil. The bill calls for an Amer
lean ocean and mail service superior
to the systems or Great Britain, France
and Germany. 1t will revolutionize in
our favor, as against the Suez route,
the worlds ocean mail connections with
China and Japan. 1t will give us forty
two auxiliary merchant cruisers against
Great Britain's fifty. For $13, 900, 900 in
subsidies it will give us in one year
100000 tons in ships suitable for foreign
trade and place us ahead of Germany
as shipbuilders. II the ship subsidy |
bill passes our shipbuilding plants, |
forty-four in number, with SOS, 900, 900 |
capital and employing $4,000 men, will |
soon be doubled and trebled. Anyway, |
nearly all of the money to be paid out |
in subsidies will remain in this coun- |
try. We shall all gain by the dis
tribution Of the wages which will be
paid out to from $4,000 to $4,000 more
men, besides the immense increase Of
wages in the kindred supplying indus
tries.
'ln 1861 American vessels engaged
in foreign trade had tonnage of
:, 2,49G, S94, While in 1901 it was only S79,-
595. We must redeem ourselves. The
time has come"