, 1921-05-14
RESORT TO THE GENTLE BOYCOTT.

Winthrop L. Marvin, president or the American
Steamship Owners association, who has for 4 lifetime
been concerned with shipping problems and Is with
out question one Of our highest authorities in such
matters, declares that discrimination against Amer
lean cargoes by the Britioh has reached q very seri-
Gus stage. He cites the action of the spinners and
cotton manufacturers of Lancashire in declining to
accept cotton from Galveston unless it was carried in
British ships and under British insurance. This sort
of thing. Mr.. Marvin asserts, Is occurring all the time.
American ship owners did not desire to reduce wages
but they were driven to it by practices employed by
British industrial concerns.
This calls to mind that the United States Of Amer
lea has a long score to settle with British cotton man
ufseturers. For nearly a century they have conspired
in one way or another to injure American industry,
particularly the cotton textile industry. The Man
chester manufacturers spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars in support of the Golden propaganda for free
trade. with a view to combating attempts on our part
to protect our cotton mills from their competition.
was stalled off by protection. This was a warfare of
the British mill against the American mill.
1t now appears that the British cotton manufae-|
'turers, and perhaps other industries, are going out
of their way to cripple an American industry which
does not compete with them, but which does COM
pete with British shipping. This would seem to be q
matter that congress should take under advisement.
Great Britain has been the leader of the worlds
shipping trade SO long that her merchants appear to
think she has established a prescriptive right to the
high seas and that any nation that has the effrontery
to question that right must be penalzed for it. This
is one Of the most outrageous methods Of coercion of
which even British business aggression has been guilty,
Some time ago section "a of the Jones Merchant
Marine law came to public notice by the refusal of
that Anglophile president, Mr.. Wilson, TO enforce it
by the abrogation of certain clauses in our CONNER
cial treaties. That section did no more than to au-
thorze the president to give due notice of our inten-
ton to terminate clauses which restricted tho right of
the United States to impose discriminating customs
duties on imports entering in American vessels-a
purely domestic piece of legislation. which Mr.. Will
son refused to carry out. Immediately Mr.. Wilson
was backed up by every foreign nation which boosted
shipping, and by all the internationalists with which
the body polite is infested. Fave any of those ger
tlemen protested the action of the British cotton spin
ners and manufacturers? Not at all. Anything that
is done in good old England is quite the proper thing,
but if we do anything to protect our interests, through
legislation openly and decently secured these interna-
tionalists make faces and call US hard names.
II the United States should cut off Brtain's cot
ton supply as a retaliatory measure for this boycott
of American shipping, there would be such a paralysis
in the British cotton industry as they have not known
since the days of the civil war. And IL this latest
game of Il British business is persisted in, retaliation in
some form is quite within the range of possibilities
for the merchant marine as well as the navy is ell
titled to its due.