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ac | MARINE REVIEW. 26 BUREAU OF NAVIGATION REPORT. MERCHANT COASTING FLEET THE LARGEST IN OUR HISTORY, BUT ONLY 9 PER OENT OF OUR EXPORTS AND IMPORTS WERE CARRIED IN AMERIOAN VES- SELS LAST YEAR--STRONG ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF A MER- CHANT MARINE FOR FOREIGN TRADE. Washington, D. C., Nov. 22.--The annual report of Mr. E. T. Cham- berlain, commissioner of navigation, shows that American shipping in- dustries shared in the general prosperity of the country during the past fiscal year. The returns disclose more satisfactory conditions than those of any former year in the history of the bureau of navigation. The total doc- umented tonnage on June 30, 1899, comprised 22,728 vessels of 4,864,238 gross tons, which is our largest since 1865. The tonnage operating under our coasting laws, 21,397 vessels of 4,015,992 gross tons, is the largest in our history, and greater than the coasting tonnage of any other nation. Our steam tonnage, 2,476,011 tons, for the first time exceeds the tonnage of all other craft. In the rest of the world steam tonnage eleven years ago exceeded sail tonnage. Our tonnage registered for foreign trade remains small, and last year American vessels carried a fraction less than 9 per cent of our exports and imports, the smallest percentage in our history. Based on Bureau Veritas returns, the world's sea-going sail tonnage in the past quarter of a century has decreased from 14,185,836 tons to 8,693,769 tons, a decrease of 40 per cent. The decrease in the United States has been at the average rate. The world's sea-going steam tonnage in the same period has increased from 4,828,193 tons to 18,887,132 tons, or 336 per cent. The phenomenal increases have been Norway's, over 1400 per cent, and Ger- many's, nearly 700 per cent. The increase of the United States has been only 68 per cent, and the increase of American steam tonnage registered for foreign trade on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts has been only 38 per cent. The development of Alaska within the past few years has caused a rapid increase in Pacific coast tonnage. Within the past twenty years the United States in sea-going steam tonnage has dropped from the second place next to Great Britain to the fourth position, below Germany and France, and if steamships in. foreign trade alone are considered, below Norway and Spain, and only slightly ahead of Japan. The report reviews briefly the legislation of other nations in behalf of their merchant shipping, showing that last year European nations and Japan expended over $26,000,000 to promote it in various forms, while the United States spent only $998,211. On their steamship lines to China and Japan foreign nations expended about $5,000,000, while for the same purpose the United States expended less than $49,000. The establishment of two or more fast American steamship lines on the Pacific coast to connect with Asia will furnish the capitals of western Europe with closer mail and passenger con- nections by from three to five days than'is now possible by the heavily subsidized British, German and French steamship lines through the Suez canal. The reasons which impel other nations to develop their merchant shipping, says Mr. Chamberlain, apply with equal force to the United States. Among them are first, the relations of the navy to the merchant marine as an element of national defense; second, relations of a merchant marine to insular territory; third, its relations to new markets in Asia, Africa, Australia and South America; fourth the necessity for the best ocean mail facilities under the flag; fifth, the relation of the merchant marine to exports and imports and the value of the carrying trade, and finally, the promotion of ship building and contributory industries. By various methods of computation the annual value of the ocean carrying trade of the United States is estimated at about $175,000,000, including passenger and immigrant fares and payments for ocean mails to and from the United States. The argument that American shipping in the foreign trade is handicapped by tariff duties is met by reference to progressive legislation beginning in 1872, by which for the last five years all materials for the construction of American vessels in the foreign trade and all sup- plies for stich vessels have been exempt from duties. Tonnage taxes, which are imposed equally on foreign and American vessels, are the only form of federal taxation on American shipping. The proposition to repeal tonnage taxes would, therefore, in effect be equivalent to a bounty of about $750,000 annually to foreign shipping and would relieve American shipping of only $80,000 of taxes annually. The report then takes up the five methods which have recently been suggested for the promotion of the American merchant marine. It is pointed out that discriminating duties on cargoes in foreign vessels or on the tonnage of foreign vessels are an impracticable remedy on account of the provisions in our treaties with nearly all the nations of the world, pre- scribing equal treatment for foreign and American vessels in the matter of duties and charges. The same objection also applies to the proposition to grant bounties on exports in American vessels, as by the terms of our Principal treaties we are obliged to grant the same bounties on exports in foreign vessels as in American vessels. The proposition to grant Amer- ican registry to foreign-built vessels in the foreign trade is not regarded as feasible in view of the unanimous rejection of that proposition four years ago by the senate committee on commerce, and on account of the fact that American ship owners and ship builders are united in opposition to that measure. It is also pointed out that regardless of the merits or demerits of the proposition, its adoption would probably disappoint its advocates, in view of the fact that the cost of operating vessels under the \merican flag is concededly much greater than the cost of operating for- eign vessels. The adoption of the free ship policy by Great Britain has not contributed in any way to her maritime development, as vessels for many years have been built more cheaply in Great Britain than elsewhere, and in point of fact, vessels built outside of Great Britain are seldom regis- tered under the British flag, with occasional exceptions in the colonies. he success of the free ship policy in Norway and other Scandinavian Countries is due to their very large maritime population, which renders it necessary for the governments of those countries to encourage the pur- chase of vessels built in Great Britain, in order to afford employment for their seamen. Even then the tonnage under the Norwegian flag is insuffi- cient to furnish employment for Norwegian sailors, who constitute a, large Part of the crews of British vessels and of American vessels, both in the Coasting and in the foreign trade. The rates of wages paid to Norwegian sailors are much lower even than those paid on British or German vessels, and the general cost of operating vessels under the Norwegian flag is less than under the British flag. These conditions, none of which obtain in the United States, have rendered the adoption of the free ship policy by Norway a national necessity. The conditions in Germany, in so far as the cost of operating vessels is concerned; are analogous to those of Norway, and up to 1885 there were very few ocean steamships under the German flag built in Germany. The development of German ship yards since 1885 is attributable in part at least to legislation advocated first by Prince Bis- marck, through which a heavy subsidy was granted to the North German Lloyd Steamship Co., which owns all but four of the fast steamships under the German flag, and to the German law by which materials for steam- ships are carried on the government railroads at low rates of freight. The proposition to develop the merchant marine through ocean mail subsidies is only a partial solution of the question. While the need of at least two fast mail steamship lines to Asia and one to South America is indisputable, the establishment of such lines would not suffice to put our navigation and ship building on a satisfactory basis. The report in the main is devoted to a consideration of senate bill 5990, reported by Senator Frye at the last session, as a substitute for the bills introduced by Senator Hanna and Representative Payne. ..It is pointed out that the maximum expenditure under that bill for any one year is fixed at $9,000,000, from. which, however, should be deducted $1,500,000, the present cost of carrying our ocean mails on American vessels, which will continue whatever the fate of the bill may be. 'The actual maximum annual expenditure proposed by the bill is thus in effect fixed at $7,500,000. Assuming that all our vessels registered for foreign trade were fully occupied throughout the year at the present time, the net expenditure under the bill would be in round numbers $3,000,000. Before the maximum is reached the capacity of our ship yards must be increased many times, and the tonnage under our flag engaged in the foreign trade multiplied several fold. This increase in the canacity of our ship yards and in our tonnage in foreign trade will show ability on our part to compete ' on more nearly even terms with foreign nations. The prorata reductions in compensation provided for when the maximum expenditure of $9,000,- 000 is reached will thus coincide with the lessened need of government assistance. During the decade ending 1898 our ship yards produced only 213,000 gross tons of ocean steamships, while in the same period German yards turned out 350,000 gross tons, and British yards 9,680,000 gross tons. The difference in the cost of construction and operation of American and British vessels is considered in some detail. It is also pointed out that of the 362 steamships of 14 knots or over now in existence inthe world, over 80 per cent are receiving in one form or another assistance from the government to which they belong, aggregating upwards of $20,000,000. This is deemed justification for the proposition in the bill to give a dis- tinct allowance to American steamships of 14 knots or upwards. Com- parison is made at length between these special rates under the bill with the eight principal British ocean mail contracts, and it is shown that while the British mail contracts involve the annual payment of $3,900,000, the payments under this bill designed as an offset to the British payments for similar services with similar vessels under the American flag would be $3,580,000. The bill would be inadequate if it were proposed to parallel British lines, especially those to Asia and Australia. The American lines which will be established under the bill, however, to those quarters of the globe will not be compelled to pay Suez canal tolls, and the compensation proposed will thus be adequate. Comparison is also made in detail with the new North German Lloyd subsidy of $1,320,000, and it is shown that corresponding American steamships under this bill would receive $1,295,- 000, though the cost of building and operating the German steamships is mtch lower than the corresponding cost of American vessels. Full official tables of the wages on American and British vessels are printed, and to elucidate the conditions the monthly pay-roll of five steam- ships, each of about 2500 gross tons, is printed in full; the American Cher- okee's roll being $1,385, the British Critic $852, the German Sonnenburg $646, the Dutch Teutonia $554 and the Norwegian Fortuna $511. The report also recommends moderate increase in our tonnage taxes, equalizing them with those imposed at the principal European ports, and favors the passage of bills applying the laws of the United States relative to commerce, navigation and merchant seamen to Hawaii and Porto Rico, thus bringing those islands under the coasting laws of the United States. It is recommended that vessels owned by Cubans be placed by law on an equality with vessels belonging to the most favored nation. Under an existing statute it has been necessary to impose a tonnage tax of $1 per gross ton--practically prohibitory--upon such vessels, and this injustice both to ourselves and the Cubans can be remedied only by legislation. Under the so-called White bill for the protection of seamen, American sailors now enjoy a larger degree of personal liberty than ever before and much more than the seamen of any other nation, that law radically chang-. ing the nature of the seaman's agreement. Reports from shipping com- missioners show that the allotment sections have been of decided benefit to seamen and that efforts to break down these sections during the spring and early summer have failed and the law is in the main successfully en- forced. Attention is directed to the menace to navigation resulting from long tows of coal barges along the Atlantic cast, especially at New York, Boston, and other important harbors, and of the large timber rafts on the Pacific coast. : Besides the usual tables the report contains a list of the world's fast steamships and of American steamships registered for foreign trade at the end of the fiscal year, and tables showing the distances between the sea- ports of the United. States and the principal seaports of the rest of the world: James E. Simons, formerly assistant master car builder of the Pitts- burg & Lake Erie Railroad, is now superintendent of rolling stock and machinery for the Pittsburg Coal Co., the great combination recently or- ganized in Pittsburg. His offices are in the Hussey building at Pittsburg. New machinery to the amount of $1,475 has recently been secured for the engineering shops of the University of Michigan.