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TAE MaRINE REVIEW | i, Simply, it is said, because of the principle involved and the expense incurred. The inconsistency of refusing the benefits of govern- mental aid to one of the most important industries requiring American capital, American material and employing American labor is absolutely indefensible under any circumstances, but under the peculiar con- ditions .surrounding the question at issue it is a thousand times more so. Take as illustration the $38,000,000 paid out each year as postal subsidies to a few great railroad sys- tems and not always even recommended by the post office authorities. Think of the millions for which the whole country is taxed without complaint to pay for the restoration by irrigation of the desert lands of certain western states. And then think of the value given to property in - some favorite localities at the expense of the whole country by the passage of river and harbor bills car- rving appropriation that in eight years have amounted 10. S122 327,150, And to go further, the country is facing an organ-_ ized effort on the part of our navy department to have built a number of great battleships and to increase the expenditure for naval requirements by many millions of dollars, and yet the reports of the naval officers, articles in the public press and leading magazines are to the effect that we do not commence to have enough American officers and seamen to care properly for the ships we already own; and it is well known that a large proportion of those who man our modern war- ships now owe their allegiance to foreign powers. With all other large nations, the building of a navy is secondary to or is influenced somewhat by the ex- tent of their merchant marine, and the merchant mar- ine of these nations, on the other hand, makes it easily possible to find an ample supply of skilled officers and seamen with which to readily recruit its naval forces. But in the face of these conditions, millions. are being constantly appropriated for new ships, while the total expense that would be involved by the passage of the commission's bill would be about one-half the cost of a single battleship; and besides it is esti- mated that its passage would render it necessary and profitable to build immediately at least 100 modern steamships, all carrying the stars and stripes, all off- cered by American citizens and employing American crews. | In time of peace these ships would be as so many floating American industrial establishments, ware- houses, and shops carrying the products of our farms, shops and mills to distant lands, familiarizing our people with foreign methods of handling and intro- ducing American wares, educating a portion of our young men to represent our flag and its: institutions in foreign lands and in a general way, blazing the path for a future industrial supremacy in foreign commerce that now largely because of the lack of these advantages is going almost entirely to other countries. ; Which would be the greater advantage to our country in time of either peace or war, the one battle- ship or 100 fast ocean going steamships that could be depended upon for transportation service to carry war material and supplies, and better than all, fur- nish a reserve force of enthusiastic Americans with the sea habit sufficiently developed to supply the de- _ mand for the "man behind the gun?" What a rank humbug for our short-sighted law . makers to talk about expense. aoe : Here we have the spectacle of taxpayers putting up $40,000,000 to purchase a right of way through swamps and over mountains, in a foreign land, in order that we may have the doubtful pleasure of buiid- ing an enormous canal--for what purpose? To bene- fit solely the immense merchant marine and commerce | of Great Britain, Germany Japan, Norway, France, © Italy, etc. ; but not to bring a return of one dollar to this country, its flag or its taxpayers. The cost of building the canal was to be 200 million, we heard at the begin- ning; then we were told, 300 million and never said a word; and it jumped successively and rapidly to 400; now we hear of 500 million of dollars as being about the right figure, to say nothing of the cost of operation and repairs, and the work has not yet been fully 'mapped out and no one living has any idea as to what the cost will eventually be. And all because we are carried away, apparently, by an hysterical sentiment that is without parallel in the world's history. : Ifthe canal is ever: finished (and it is not likely it will be finished in twenty years, at least) it will never carry an American ship unless it is an occasional man-of-war, provided our policy does not quickly undergo a radical change; and the merchant marine of every nation but ours will be doing the world's business, which by then will have grown to mam- moth proportions. And not content with sending out of the country, as we do now, hundreds of millions of dollars in gold each year as freight to foreign ship owners for carrying on American commerce, we are going to forge a chain around our own necks by taxing American citizens for the enormous sum neces- sary to further strengthen the trade, add to the wealth and increase the prestige of foreign nations, while our merchant marine remains extinct and American manu- facturers and workingmen are robbed of their just share in what ought to be our great national under- taking and a phase of our national development and prosperity. : It is given as an excuse and a sort of a weak-kneed justification for all this that the canal is being con- structed to aid American marine interests, but not a record exists of any suggestion ever having come from such an interest in any way; and it is not improb-