The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-02-19


 o60, ,ooO yearly in premiums for fast mail ships and in admiralty subVentions and these payments although possibly not techinacally subsidies amount to the same thing in the end Take the case of the Cunarders, the Mauritania
 end the Lusitania. Germany had wrested the pennant of the seas from
 England and England went to the Cum ard e0mpany to urge tle construction
 If ships that would regain the lost laurels. The Gunarders. however, pied k,hat the profits would not justify the cost of such ships The British gov
 ernment promptly lent the Cunard com pany the s13,0e0,000 neco ssary to con- struct the two vessels mentioned at | 2@ per cent and then guaranteed an annual payment of sN,200,000 annually
 for 20 years to these boats in mail pre- miums and naval subventions. That is the way John Bull does business. And she Germans are not Tar behind. AL
 though their money payments Tall somewhat below those of Great Britain yet harbor priviliges, nominal rates upon freights for foreign shipment
 granted by the government-owned railroads and other means are used for helping out the German merchant ma rine.
 Tn our early history our merchant bldIllG NdS Speeully DullL hP iAOhi
 small proportions to vast extent by the application of discriminating duties. Have No Golfers "We could not get our fleet to the coast for we have no colliers. When
 our 16 battleships encircled the globe they were accompanied by 27 Eng fish, German and Italian colliers. Had war broken out between this country
 and Japan or any other country at that ime under international law every one of these ships would have been left as idle as painted ships upon a painted ocean. Napoleon used to say that an
 army fights upon it's belly A modern hattie ship fights upon it's coal bunk CTS.
 Japan has, since 1891, by wise and generous subsidies, increased it's mer- chan marine from about 200,G00 tons to a tornage of 1,500,000 composed most ly of modern steamers-at least 500
 of which would be available for use as transports and colliers.
 Our coastwise marine protected in
 an absolute monopoly under the law
 of 1917 has tonnage of 100000. but 5,e00,000 of these are on the Great Lakes and could not reach the ocean.
 good proportion of the remainder like the Hudson river and the Long Island sound boats are rot suitable for
 
 shown in the late war with Spain when after delaying the war for a couple of months and after raking the dock yards of Europe with fine tooth comb we secured for that war a total of | 5. ships and these included a number | from our coastwise marine and the ships of the American Line gained by
 the law of 1891.
 The Humphrey Bill
 ''We have not time to go into the re- | cent attempts made to get an ocean | mail bill through Congress. The Humph- l rey bill, which was defeated by three | votes last spring, was reintroduced with certain changes in the present Congress. This bill, certainly a bill of the mildest sort, is not properly subsidy bill. In
 its first section it provides for free ships. This is to meet those who think that free ships would meet the exigency. But
 it should be apparent to every thinking
 mind that as long as every other nation
 protects it's ships we have no chance of success with free ships That we can build and man ships if given the chance is shown by the magnificent development of our coastwise marine. Our great lakes
 marine alone exceeds in tonnage the entire
 English coastwise marine. But. as said
 before our coastwise marine has abso- protection-protection to the extent of monopoly.
 Another section of the Humphrey bill doubles the tonnage taxes on vessels entering our harbors. This will increase
 the receipts from s1000.OO0, as now to
 nearly s2,0I0,000. Then, where an Amer ican ship carries an American boy as a sailor apprentice for each 1000 tons of registry, 80 per cent of the harbor dues are remitted to such ship.
 "Stll more important, however, are the amendments to the ocean mail law of 1891 Under this law vessels are divided
 nto four classes and payments are to be made for carrying the mall according to
 the classification of the vessel. But only
 in the first-class are these payments at all adequate.
 "The Humphrey bill not only increases the compensation for all vessels of the lower classes, but it allows the Postmas- ter General to make these payments up to the limits of the amounts received by the department in payment of ocean pos tage. Now, the receipts from ocean post age in 1908 amounted to a total of $9,- COG, ,0Q0 while the payments for the same did not exceed S3,000,O00, the government making about s6,000,000 out of the busi- ness. Quite properly. the Humphrey bill proposes to apply this money to increas- ing our ocean mail facilities. s This is only honest.
 Great South American ports like Rio and Buenos Ayres have at most not more than couple malls month to this country, while swift mail steamers main tained by heavy payments for their serv ices, provide several mails a week to Europe. No wonder the American ex- porter has difficulty in building up a trade in South America.
 "No, the Humphrey bill is certainly mild enough and every business man, re- gardless of party, for business reasons, should urge upon his representative in Congress the speedy passage of this bill. Tn addition to the consideration of bus mess, patriotic reasons should lead us all 10 unite to get our country out of the humiiating position under which we pay the foreign shipowner an annual tribute estimated as high as S300,0O 900 year and which makes our great navy nothing more than costly. Unless we are will ing to get off the map of the ocean we must act and act quickly.
 "Let us arouse ourselves to the enormity of the situation, and let every loyal American citizen appeal to his congress- man to right the wrongs that have ex- isted so long. Any nation that does not carry 50 per cent of It's foreign com merce Is considered weakling at sea. It has been 24 years since the United States carried 20 per cent of its foreign commerce. In fact, We have depreciated in that respect from controlling 91 per cent of our oversee traffic, in the days of Monroe to 7-10th per cent in the days of Taft. Is 1t any wonder that we have great difficulty in delivering our goods to the foreign ports of the world that arc absolutely in the hands of the foreigner and our natural commercial enemies?
 '.In his annual report made at Toronto t,, Noven,har 100o. Mr. G0mnera in sneak