The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-19
h Speech Says South Should
 Want Ship Subsidy
WOULD AID OUR COMMERCE
Thinks Americans Should Build Trans Atlantic Steamer Lines as We'll as Trans-continentaT
 Railroads.

Detroit, October 17.-Secretary Shaw was given a great ovation at Light Guard armory where he addressed an audience of fully 250O people. He spoke in part as follows
 "The question of markets is one of paramount importance. We export an- nually in rouno numbers 1,50O, 0eo coo, hus of this amount more than s1,0oo,0oO. GOO goes to Europe The population of Eit- rope is in round numbers 8, ooo, GOO GOO. How long can we expect less than one fourth of the globe to consume TO per cent of our surplus? We must not only hold the markets we have, but we must seek out new ones.
 "Our foreign commerce in forty years has increased 400 per cent, but the aggre- gate tonnage of foreign commerce carried to and from the ports of this country in American bottoms has fallen off two- thirds.
 ..Instead of this American monopoly resulting In advanced rates, it has given Us the cheapest transportation in the world. The time has come when we must construct not trans-continentay lines, but trans-oceanic lines. We have no regular steamship communication with any of the countries lying south of the Carri- bean sea- We have few ships plying between our Atlantic coast and Europe, A few between our southern ports and the South American countries washed bv the gulf and the Carribean sea, a small line that regularly crosses the Pa- cific, in the aggregate less than score of vessels. England. France, Germany, Norway. Sweden and Holland, with sub sidized vessels, are making regular trips to the South American countries and they naturally get the trade.
 "A ship subsidy bill has passed the sen- ate. am not speaking in its favor, but it is due those who have labored in its interest to say that the drain upon the treasury would be infinitely small. It costs our people s2Oo,ooO a year to carry their transoceanic freight and under tho hill as it passed the senate not to ex- ceed S1, ,20O,O GOO can in any wise be paid out until more ships are built and whenever q shin is constructed, 95 per cent of it's cost goes to labor. So without discussing the merits of the bill now pending, want to urge the importance of bill con- structed upon very different lines, one that shall insure regular steamship com munication to South American countries, South African countries and the islands adjacent.
 Tt is idle to suppose that steamship lines will be established to those ports without government aid. There is little freight now to carry, and no inducement and a steamship line would perish before sufficient trade could be built up to make it profitable. It will take years to make steamship lines to those ports far to the southward profitable, and in my opinion any ship subsidy bill that will meet the approval of both houses of congress will contain special provisions for these new lines, and at rates far in excess of what Is necessary to induce competition with European lines in transatlantic commerce. The marvel to me is that the cotton pro- ducing states are not a unit in favor of every means that shall enlarge the mar kets for their surplus. To my own mind, there Is no public question of so great importance as foreign markets for our manufactured products.''