The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-07-07
STILL SEEKING LIGHT.

writing of the desirability of a larger
American participation in the ocean
carrying trade, said it would assured
Iv not be done through any special
LEGISLATION. whether in the interests
of free ships or free material to build
them, inasmuch as after a discussion
of many years, ideas are as diverse,
as irreconcilable, and as firmly sup
ported antagonastically as when the
discussion began
And now, after a quarter of a GEN.
fury Of this same discussion, and after
several years of strenuous effort by
the friends of large cash subsidies for
shipbuiders and shipbuilding corpor-
ations, congress has failed to respond
effectively to the subsidists of the
lobby or the appeals of members
friendly to the several subsidy bills,
and even appeals by the presidents
themselves that something might be
done for our merchant Marine have
failed to get that something" done.
The merchant marine commission,
appointed by congress at the recent
session under the Gardner bill to de-
wise plans for restoring our mer-
chant marine to its former primacy
on the high seas, has recently pro-
ceeded to its work. The proceedings
so far in Chicago by the commission
and in Detroit by a subcommittee
show that the commission is destined
to travel over the well-trodden path
of former inquiries.
At the Chicago meeting John Bar
rett our minister to Panama, reiter-
ated the old complaint that our flag
could not be seen flying from the
masthead of a single merchant ship
on the high seas, as he himself had
observed in five trips around the
world.
OF course Mr.. Barrett might have
seen a few if he had scrutiniZed the
horizon closely, but the main fact is
that, back in the forties and fifties,
British marine interests stood aghast
at the facts accomplished by the null
titude of American merchant ships,
notably the great and fleet clipper
ships which We're then taking vast
quantities of freight from British
ships in the Orient and Occident, COM
polling even the London Times to call
our country Britains gigantic and
unshackled rival" on the sea.
If the new commission will avoid
the error of the cash subsidists in
congress and out of it, that error
having been several times rebuked
and cast aside by congress, it may
accomplish something. The error has
been the insistence upon govern
mental disbursements in vast sums to
shipping corporations, with features
of unjust discrimination which We're
offensive to the quickened pub
lie conscience and sensitiveness as to
such tendencies.
The public is aware that the reiter-
ated statements of the heavy subsidy
advocates that the European govern
ments all lavish cash subsidies on
their merchant marines are grossly
the system for some time and the re-
suit is that her ships carry freight at
unremunerative prices and sail on the
strength of the subsidy and the French
merchant marine is in morbund
condition. The great German mer-
chant marine, like the English, re-
ceives mail-carrying subsidies to some
extent and the merchant steamers OF
the great transatlantic lines under ma
val subvention may be taken by the
government for use in time of war.
The German marine staff's expert
| who came to this country not long age
to examine our shipbuilding interests
stated, after he had done his work
that materials for constructing stee
ships are cheaper here than in any