The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-04-02
THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL.

mont delegation, excepting Senator
Ross, who voted for the measure.
The press of mountaineering the
Watchman and Journal-were loudly
proclaiming the opposition of the peo
pie of this State to the measure and
direful disaster, in the then impend-
ing national canvass, was to result to
the Republican party if the Porto
Rican tariff bill should become law
The bill became a law, but the proph
cts of evil were false prophets; Porto
Rican tariff was never mentioned in
the succeeding canvass for the presi-
dency, and its results were as benef-
cent as the most sanguine friend pre-
dicted
In respect of the ship subsidy bill
pending in Congress, Vermont in the
Senate is one of three northern
States, Iowa, Wisconsin and Yer
mont, which voted against the meas
ure. The other opposing States were
in the South Again, with one voice
the newspapers are saying the people
of Vermont are opposed to this meas
ure for rebuilding the merchant ma
rine of the United States This state
ment is apparently evolved from the
editorial innerconsciousness. 1t is a
matter of doubt if nine men in ten in
Vermont know enough about the meas
ure to know whether or not they are
opposed to it.
AS the Vermont Senators made no
speeches in the Senate in the debate
on the measure the reasons for their
adverse vote are not publicly known.
A Vermont newspaper has declared
that the general subsidy branch of the
bill was simply broad highway into
the national treasury. a Southern
Senator declared that there was no
need of shipbuilding bounty Ameri-
cans could build ships as cheaply as
the ship builders of any other nation {;
one American line would reap the
bulk of the benefits of the subsidy and
the proposed subsidy would simply
add butter to butter, make the rich
ship owner richer.
There is hardly an argument ad-
duced in defense of protection to the
industrial interests of the United
States, when they were in their I" in
fancy" that does not apply with
equal force to the measure framed and
championed by Senator Frye and sup
ported in the Senate by every north
ern State but three, present by its
Senators and voting. A subsidy is
offensive, opposed to sound public pol
icy, they say. So is a bounty But
subsidies or bounties are means of
protection where tariff duties cannot
be applied. Protection to an indus
try of vast Importance, like the rose,
ought to smell as sweet by any other
name
Vermonters are protectionists-th
great majority of them. They were
very much in favor of bounty-a sub
sidy-on maple sugar. 1t was favored
by Senators Edmunds and Morrill,
Because a certain Representative was
accounted hostile to the maple sugar
subsidy, it was laid up against him
and when the reckoning with his con-
stituents came he had to answer for
his false stewardship. Vermont has
maple sugar; it hasn't ocean going
shipping. Is Vermont in favor of
subsidy ON the former but opposed to
aTsubsidy for the latter? Is the one
any more than the other a raid on
the national treasury" Is Vermont
sectional, or national, in the stand it
takes on great public measures?
In the nature of things, existing
lines of fast steamers at the outset
would reap the largest advantage I'M
der any subsidy law Time would
equalize this. Ships for new lines
would be built. In growing American
merchant marine the dead level of
competition would be reached. There
is the United States Steel company.
Under the tariff ON iron and steel it
turns out Millionaire every twenty
four hours, and has produced man
who numbers his wealth by hundreds
of millions of dollars. When it was
proposed to correct the tariff rates in
this department of industry all the
powers of persuasion were employed
to reduce the champion of the PROPOSE
ton to silence, There is pretty close
analogy between that corporation and
the steamship line. Why discriminate
against the latter? If it draws large
subsidy under rates admittedly just
and adequate to promote the rebuilding
of American ocean going ships, what of
that? Other lines will be coming
along; single ships will be built; there
is limit to the number of subsidized
voyages vessel may make in year
time limit is provided for the law
as a whole, and the law is always sub
ject to amendment or repeal. Are the
northern States, as represented in the