Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-01-02


1T has been so much discussed that
1t has come to seem a difficult prob
lem but Is it? Let us see. We carry
| only eight per cent of our foreign
| trade in American ships and We have
to pay any rates for the rest of it that
the foreign shipping combines decide
| upon. We all want to get back to
some such laws as were put on our
statute books in 1889 by Washington,
Madison and Jefferson, at time when
our ships carried but 20 per cent of
our exports and imports, and which
laws by 1900 had already raised that
percentage to SO per cent and by 1910
to 911a per cent at the same time Civ
ing us merchant marine that won
for us the war of 1872 In 1928. when
we were carrying SO per cent of our
trade, the agricultural south and west
combined against the shipping inter-
ests of New England and passed the
reciprocity act of 1928, opening our
trade to foreign competition, where.
upon there at once began loss which
has now shrunk our total down to a
paltry and shameful eight per cent
President Polk, seeing the success of
Engllsh subsidies in the then new
steamship trade, followed their ex-
ample and soon our success I'M steam.
ships was rivalling our earlier success
IN clipper built ships. but the bitter
sectional quarrel between south and
north in 1856 caused the southerners
In congress, lead by Jefferson Davis,
70 strike blow at the shipbuilding
north by repeating the mail subsidies.
1t succeeded.
Ioday the cotton-growing south and
the grain growing west are as alive
as the northeastern seaboard to the
need for freeing our merchant marine
from the meshes of the net that is
strangling it,
Everybody wants our merchant ma
rine assisted-it was promised by all
parties in the campaign of 1912 What
happened after the electiono The
democratic party, in control of both
branches of the congress and of the
executive. enacted the tariff law of
october 3, 1913, and in it put a section
granting five per cent reduction in
duties to goods carried in American
ships. Sundry foreign governments
filed protests with the state
department. These foreign govern
ments had long been planning to pre-
vent any return by us to the laws
which succeeded so brilliantly in the
early days of our republic. Thanks to
certain secretaries of state, more Gag
er to perpetuate their rames on treat
les than to learn the history and pol
icy of their department. those foreign
ers succeeded in weaving a web Of
treaties which in the opinion of the
attorney general of the United States
(rendered October 81, 1913, to the sec
rotary of the treasury nullified all
that part of the act which attempted |
10 assist our merchant marine And |
that was the end of it? No, it was
only the end of that chapter, for the
people of the United States walked up
,or the first time to the fact that con-
slant vigilance must henceforth be |
given to what contracts our state de.
)artment makes with foreign powers.
We now insist on knowing if good bar
gains are being made for us, so
1agrantly have many Of our diplomat
SITS been outwitted in the past, as wit
less this mesh Of treaties that seem
o leave us powerless to do what
Madison and Jefferson
lid in 1889.
Let us look at these treaties, and
lee If anything could be added to the
aid opinion of our attorney general.
We shall find that almost without ex-
|
either party at his pleasure,
lpon a specified notice generally of
me year, to terminate it. No breach
# treaty or of contract is necessary
O terminate the treaties recited in
he attorney generals opinion. To i
erve general notice that unless these
reaties are so modified as to give us
Jack the freedom of 1889 we intend
vailing ourselves of their abrogating
lauses would gain us respect from
hose very foreign chancelleries which
oday laugh openly over their success
n catching our merchant marine in
heir net of treaties. It would be both
Interesting and useful for us to learn
,hich, if any, of those chancelleries
yould decline to make such modifica-
Ions, and thus force us to serve the
equired notice upon them! Forum :
tely we are not here confronted with /.
question like that involved in the
anama, canal treaty-in that treaty :
lere was no abrogating clause.