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owning was not a national necessity in the same sense as it was in Brit- ain, and the people, most of whom had never smelt salt water, were, and still are, indifferent. The necessity for American ships in the foreign trade of this country has been considered as only a personal matter of the ship build- ers and ship owners, and not a vital national question; in Great Britain, on the contrary, her position among the nations is held to depend on her naval supremacy, and so_ the British ship - puilder had only to learn well his busi- ness of building good ships and _ his government saw to it that the ship owners should not lack encouragement to use them. The ship builders of this country have been unable to get their country to make any real effort to get and to hold the oversea carrying trade that belongs to, it. The ship builder has mastered the science of modern ship building and has brought into existence the plants necessary for build- ing the highest class of ocean carriers, but no response in the shape of pro- tection for the products of these yards has come from the people. | : Must Have Our Own Ships. Thoughtful men here and there, and especially in states facing the oceans, are beginning to feel that the time has come when this country must begii the work of building up an _ ocean commerce through ships bearing our own flag. When this country once realizes that the time has come when it is a national necessity that merchant ships built in our own ship yards, officered, and, if possi- ble, manned by our own citizens, owned and operated by our progressive. men 'of affairs, shall represent our enter- prise and power in all parts of the world, there will be found a way to do it with profit to all concerned. Ef- forts to stimulate shipping will then be understood by the people and ques- tions regarding such matters and need- ing legislation will be treated in the manner that their importance demands. Admitting to register foreign-built ships, as now proposed in a measure before congress, will not revive the shipping of this country; if it would the ship builder might be willing to be sacri- ficed in order that 'such a result might follow. A country that could nor build ships has never, as far as I have been able to find, been able to own and operate them. Transfer of Finland and Kroonland. The absurdity of such a proposition was very forcibly illustrated by the TAE MarRINE. REVIEW president of the society in his opening address at the meeting held last No- vember in his reference to the transfer of the two largest American-built ships in the trans-Atlantic trade, the Fin- land and the Kroonland, from Ameri- can to Belgian registry for the pur- pose of securing the advantages of lower wages and cheaper maintenance under foreign colors. Might we not dispense with protection for every in- dustry in order to secure the advantage of lower wages and cheaper living as found in foreign countries? The necessity of doing our own foreign carrying trade is growing upon us faster than some of us care to admit. Under present conditions the value of our exports is, in round figures, $1,750,000,- 000, and of Gur imports, $1,250,000,000, leaving a balance of about $500,000,000 which appears to be diminishing very rapidly and it is this balance which insures our continued prosperity. With this great export and import trade carried in our own ships one-half this balance would produce the same re- sult. It may be doubted whether this country will be able to continue to furnish exports sufficient to maintain this balance in our favor and continue to pay about $250,000,000 annually to foreign shipowners to carry it for us. Our Great 'Export Trade. We are in the habit of pointing with pride to our export trade of one and three-quarters billions of dollars and often claim that it is the result of our skill as producers and of our foresight as international merchants. Will you pardon me if I suggest that this great export trade cannot be attributed' to either our skill as manufacturers or our foresight as merchants. Of our aggregate exports over one billion consists of raw cotton, food products, © petroleum products, lumber and other raw materials' of which we produce a surplus and of which the rest of the world must have a supply. There is a time coming when the rapidly increasing population of this country will be more urban than it is now, when factories will multiply more rapidly than farms, when the United States will need new and im- portant. markets; 'the world may come to us in its own ships for the prod- ucts of our farms and for the raw materials from our mines, but it will not come in its own ships for the fin- ished products of our factories. When that time comes, and it is near at hand, we will need international mer- chants, international bankers, and an international merchant marine. There are reasons why the American : December, 1909 ship cannot compete with the foreign ship in the ocean carrying trade. Na- tional conditions over which our ship- builders or ship owners have no con- trol and which they are powerless to change make the cost of building ves- 'sels in the United States from 30 to 40 per cent greater than in other countries. The cost of manning and victualing these American ships is also much greater, probably not less than 30 per cent more than manning and victualing foreign ships. In ad- dition there are other expenses in the operation of vessels which are greater in the United States than they are in other countries, such as taxes, repairs, outfit, and equipment. Most of these higher costs are the outgrowth of conditions resulting from the policy of high protection to industries that have been developed under laws' first enacted, strange as it may seem, by the very Congress that removed all protection from shipping engaged in the foreign trade and which policy has continued through all the period that American shipping engaged in the foreign trade has been declining. The cost of the materials entering into the construction. and outfit of American vessels is necessarily higher because of the conditions that. obtain in other industries that are highly prosperous under the conditions that obtain under the protection afforded by the tariff--industries producing precisely the same materials that are employed in building and outfitting ships. The wages of the workmen employed in our shipyards are on the same high scale due to the gen- eral standard of wages prevailing in similar industries that are great, pow- erful, and profitable under tariff pro- tection. American and British Workmen. It is sometimes claimed that the American workman is. superior 'to his British brother and will produce as much for the wages paid as any workman in the world. There: does not appear to bé any foundation. for this claim as applied to the workmen in American shipyards, as a large pro- portion of them come from the yards in Great Britain. For piece. work, of which a good deal is done in ship- yards, the price bears about the same ratio to the wages paid here as their piece work price bears to the wages paid there, and the wages average 50 per cent higher here than there. While these conditions continue to exist it is futile to suggest, as has sometimes been done by those who know better, that ships can be built as cheaply