The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-21
SEA SUPREMACY AND ITS CAUSES Held by the People of Shrewdness and Liberal
 Shipping Laws. UNITED STATES LAX American Trade Fought for by All But Americans
 Three Causes for It.
UNITED STATES LAX

But, after all, the supremacy of the ocean does not depend upon owning
 the fastest ship aAoat. Britannia has continued to rule the waves through
 GU; these ten years, when the Atlantic
 speed records belonged to the Ger mans Nor is the British superiority beca use of her having the largest
 navy afioat. It Is to the enterprise
 and shrewdness of her merchants and lship-owners and to the liberal, ship
 ping laws that her supremacy is due, and 1t is because of similar traits mat
 the German ship-owners have bec.ale within thirty years such mighty fac-
 tors in the carrying trade of the world. Subsidies have, of course, helped in | both countries, but, after all, to a com par8tively slight extent. The great fleet of the Hamburg American Company
 has, for instance been created wholly
 without the aid of a single government grant of money. The empire has gen.
 erally lent only it's moral aid and en- corragement, and permitted its ship owaers to buy their vessels wherever they could get them best and cheapest.
 1hi fact alone ought to make Amer leans hang their heads Indeed the ar-
 rival of the Lusitania should stamp
 this as a day of humility for all our citizens who wish to see the American flag restored to the place among the wei.ds fleets which 1t occupied in the ilftie when cur clipper ships were In every harbor on the globe The whole
 world Is looking to see the English re- gain the lost Atlantic laurels-not from the most enterprislng people in the world the Americans, but from the Germans, with their brief coast line and four or five harbors. The American
 trade is fought for by everybody save ourselves. There are no reports of pro-
 iected American ships to surpass the
 Lmsitania, no rumors that American invention is busy with a plan to de-
 veiop vessel that will cross within four days. To France or Germany we
 must look for the reply to the English challenge. Our chief American line Is precisely where it was in 1892, when by act of congress it was given the special privilege of placing two of its foreign-built ships under the Stars and Stripes, on condition that it build two others in American shipyards It's ships
 are now far from modern, and 1t clngs
 desperately to its mail-subsidies, but as a factor fin the development of our Flu ropean trade, it hardly counts, save to remind us of our humiliating position. Just what has caused our downfall
 and what keeps us from entering into competition with English and Germans has recently been set forth afresh by
 Franklin Pierce in his book "The Tar
 ih and the Trusts.Y There are three
 reasons: Our barbarous navigation laws, the increased cost of shlpbuIld- Ing materials because of the tariff, and the direct impairment of out commerce
 with other countries by reason of pro-
 hibitive tariffs, which shut out imports
 and shut in exports. So far as our nav- lgation laws are concerned, they have come down to us with but few changes
 from the eighteenth century, No Amer ican cah buy a. vessel abroad and f1y
 the American flag on it unless he be the millionaire owner of a steam yacht built oh the Clyde and used for pleas
 ure only Then he can get an American registry forthwith. If he wished 10 earn | an honest dollar though that craft, he would be compelled to hoist the British flag. The theory Is that this law will compel American shipowners to build at honte; instead 1t means that they will not build at all; or, if they build at all, they must charge such prices that the Washington government hires
 fleet of British ships to carry it's coal to the Pacific or It's supplies to
 Panama Not even the payment of duty such as is exacted for a locomo- tive permits an American to buy a
 foreign vessel and hoist his own flag
 on her. How different this from Ger
 many's poncyl
 So far as the tariff Is concerned, Mir.
 Olcott, the president of the Newport
 News shipbuildlng company, testified
 before the Mercantile Marine commis-
 Slon III lJ04 lHdt' 1Ilele IS Qllel-
 ence of about forty pc cent. Gin the
 cost of shipbuilding), on account of
 the tariff 1t is not only the
 steel that is affected in price; it is ev-
 cry conceivable item that goes into a
 ship" Thus do we deliberately make
 impossible the regaining of the ship
 ping honors of which we vera once so
 proud Surely the achievements of the
 latest ocean greyhound ought b sting
 thoughtful Americans into a sense of
 shame at the spectacle of the richest
 country in the world the greatest pro-
 ducer of coal, steel and Iron, with the
 largest and finest seacoast of any ha-
 tion, throwing away the opportunity
 of becoming mistress of the seas for
 all tlnne.-New York Evening Post