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TAE Marine REVIEW 31 and better ships than ever before in the United States for any trade. With the exception of four ships now building to replace four taken over from the Ward Line for Pan- ama use there is not and for a long time has not been a single ship of. any size or description building in the United States for foreign trade, where the American people pay nearly $200,000,000 annual freights against a quarter of that sum on the great lakes. We are so abjectly dependent on foreign rivals in trade, that our flag has almost disappeared from the ocean. Only through apathy of our people, unmatched and not rivaled: in world history, nourished and lulled into soft acquies- cence by specious argument of our opponents in the ship- ping interest, can it be that, when the United States shall have spent a possible five hundred millions for a com- mercial canal at the isthmus, our flag shall go through that canal only on an occasional man-of-war or million- aire's yacht? In wars between maritime powers, an important duty of the navy has been:to convoy merchant ships. If we let things go on as they are, we certainly will not have enough merchant ships to go around for this purpose: Our league opposes this condition and any argument, thoughtless or intentional, tending to such consummation. There are those who in appavent sincerity say that the carrying of a nation's goods and the luildirg up of its mer- chant marine are matters of prite simply, and that it is better to get the work done at the cheapest. rate, taking our chances in time of need upon our ability to pay any price exacted; and these advocates point also to the fact that already American capital has been invested and the avenue of investment is open in foreign ships to be oper- ated under a foreign flag with foreign officers and men. This may redound to the advantage of some who have the money to invest, but it is destructive of the entire theory that our government exists for the whole people. While opponents of an American merchant marine are saying this, we see each year that we pay over to foreigners about $180,000,000 in freights, of which a good share should be circulated in this country, as are the freights paid in the internal land and marine commerce of the United States. Passing through the builder, the operator, the repairer, the furnisher of ships, and all the allied branches of industry aud their employes, it should go into the commercial strength of the nation, and the ultimate argument of our opponents is that this cannot or should not be done be- cause that involves conditions and wages of American citizens, which are better than those abroad. Even in this they ignore fact and reasonable hope that with American wages and conditions of living, shown in internal trans- portation on land and water, we have the cheapest trans- portation in the world, and may, with fair encouragement and a proper start do this again on the seas, and so lay - forever the ghost of "subsidy." Huniiliating as it is to our national pride; opposing all commercial history; costly as the experience has proven of dependence on the foreign rival for introduction of our products abroad, there might still remain some shred of argument based on cheapness at expense of progress in trade, if the question could with semblance of propriety be permitted to revolve around the turn upon this single ele- ment in a complex problem. This country has not only to admit that following con- sistently a system of protection in trade, it has neglected the shipping industry, which should have prospered with the rest, and has been prevented by discrimination, however induced; but that this has been done against the example of free trade nations who uniformly have selected the shipping interests for reasons of far reaching national importance, as the one single interest to be maintained and encouraged at any proper cost by that country which can have a merchant marine and would keep its place on the seas. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," said: "There seems to be, however, two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon for- eign, for the encouragement of domestic, industry. The first is, when some particular industry is necessary for the defense of the country. The defense of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sail- ors and shipping. The act of navigation, therefore, very p-operly endeavors to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in some cases by absolute prohibitions, and in others by heavy burdens upon the shipping. of foreign countries." ' John Stuart Mill, another world-renowned writer on free trade and economics, says: "The navigation laws were grounded, in theory and pro- fession, on the necessity of keeping up a 'nursery of sea- men' for the navy. On this last subject, I at once admit that the object is worth the sacrifice; and that a country exposed to invasion by sea, if it cannot otherwise have sufficient ships and sailors of its own, to secure the means of manning on an emergency an adequate fleet, is quite right in obtaining those means, even at an economical sacrifice in point of cheapness of transport. When the English navigation laws were enacted, the Dutch, from their maritime skill and their low rate of profit at home, were able to carry for other nations, England included, at cheaper rates than those nations could carry for them- selves; which placed all other countries at a great com- parative disadvantage in obtaining experienced seamen for their ships of war. The navigation laws, by which this deficiency was remedied, and at the same time a blow struck against the maritime power of a nation with which England was then frequently engaged in hostilities, were probably, though economically disadvantageous, politically expedient." In 1800 there was what the North American Review ~ described as a duel between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Blaine, one for free trade, the other for protection. On page 49 of the January number of that magazine, Mr. Blaine uses this language, and I may be pardoned for quoting, at some length: 2 "Mr. Gladstone, however, commits himself to the prin- ciple that 'all protection is morally bad.' If this has been his belief ever since he became an advocate of free trade, his conscience must have received many and severe wounds, as session after session, while chancellor of the exchequer, he carried through parliament a bounty--may I not say a _ direct protection?--of £180,000 sterling to a line of steam- ers running between England and the United States--a protection that began six years before free trade was pro- claimed in England manufactures and continued nearly twenty years after. In the whole period of twenty-five years an aggregate of many millions of dollars was paid out to protect the English line against all competition, "It may be argued that this sum was paid for carrying the Anglo-American mails, but that argument will not avail a free-trader, because steamers of other nationalities stood ready to carry the mails at a far cheaper rate. Nay, a few years ago, possibly when Mr. Gladstone was premier of England, public bids were asked to carry the Anglo- Indian mails. A French line offered a lower amount than any English line, but the English government disregarded the French bid and gave the contract to the Peninsular & Oriental Line, owned by a well-known English com- pany. Still later, the German Lloyd company contracted to carry the Anglo-American mails cheaper than any Eng-