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1901.] MARINE REVIEW. , 2 Eee eile vision that insures to the nation the construction of swift ships, always at the command of our government, and we deprive the nation of one of the most essential and potent weapons of auxiliary national defense. Aside from the provision encouraging the vessels engaging in our fisheries, and the American citizens who man them, to continue in and expand in their hazardous deep sea employment, the chief provisions of the bill have been here presented, stripped of the bothersome feature of statistical detail. It should be said that the bill provides compensation at the rates fixed in the bill for a period of not to exceed twenty years, and that at no time shall the sum thus expended exceed in any one year $9,- 000,000. As soon as enough vessels come into existence to absorb all of: this sum, in any one year, each additional ship thereafter built draws from the others in existence a pro rata share in the compensation sufficient to give the latter, size and speed being equal, the same compensation that the others receive. By this provision there is no limit to the number of ves- sels that may enjoy the compensation, but there is a limit to the sum that will be paid to them. As our marine grows, it is expected that cost of operation will be reduced, so that the amount of compensation may be reduced pro rata, as the bill provides, without checking the growth of our marine or the safe reliance of their owners upon the government com- pensation. It should have been said that an important provision of the bill is that which admits to American registry such ships as were on Feb, 1, 1889, either built or under process of construction for American citizens abroad. Such ships, when admitted, are to receive compensation equal to one-half that paid to American ships, but their owners are required to first have built in the United States tonnage equal to that admitted. The purpose of this provision was to prevent, through the operation of the bill, the infliction of any injury upon such American citizens as have in good faith been compelled to purchase foreign-built ships and run them in our foreign trade. But, by compelling them to build tonnage equal to 100 per cent of that admitted to American registry, and paying to the foreign ships only one-half of the compensation paid to American ships, exact justice has been done. This provision it is expected will cause these pres- ent American owners of foreign-built ships to hereafter have all the ships they need for their foreign trade built in the United States. As to this provision, there has much that is untrue been said. The reason that only such vessels as were built or building on Feb. 1, 1899, are to be ad- mitted to American register is because it is the purpose of the bill to encourage only the construction of American-built ships for the carrying of our foreign commerce. To provide for the subsequent purchase of an unlimited amount of foreign tonnage would defeat the chief purpose of the bill. It is not intended to encourage Americans to buy foreign-built ships —it is intended to encourage them to buy only American-built ships. It is also intended to discourage the further purchase of even one foreign- built ship for the carriage of foreign commerce of the United States. There is no trick or job in this provision—it is in consonance with the wishes of the American people, to wit, that the country should aid in the building up of an American—not a foreign—merchant marine. The whole question resolves itself into this: If the American people can be brought to understand the need and value of an American mer- cantile marine to the nation, then the bill now pending makes provision for just such an accomplishment. It also provides for its accomplishment by what is considered by those who have studied the question for years the only plan that will practically and quickly establish American ships upon the high seas. The benefit aimed at is for the nation. To secure that benefit for the nation, incidentally certain individuals—those willing | to risk their capital in American-built ships in our foreign trade—will be safeguarded against loss and competition with foreign ships in our foreign carrying. This result, it cannot be said too emphatically, will entirely fail of accomplishment, unless there is avery substan- tial reduction in the rates of freight charged for the carriage of our imports and exports, as only by reducing rates can Am- erican ships expect to wrest any of the carrying from their foreign competitors. This reduction in rates, it is believed, will several times over repay the American people for whatever expenditure the gov- ernment may make directly to the people who benefit by the provisions of the bill. The American people will receive the benefit of an American merchant marine, subject at all times to the necessities of the government, for the money they expend. Those who invest their capital in American ships will be compensated for the disadvantages that American conditions impose upon them in competition with foreign-built ships. There can be no monopoly of any route by any line or class of ships. Every route is open to any American ship that chooses to enter it. Any American may build that type of ship that he believes will be most advantageous to him under the terms of the bill. The pending shipping bill is an equitable, honest, scientifically drawn, automatically adjustable measure, destined to place the American flag once more upon the sea to the material benefit of all of the American people. The effect of such an accomplishment, in perfecting the defences of the nation, will be worth, each year, the entire cost of the operation of the measure during its entire life. THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL. There are some questions of great national importance which, because of their complexity and the many side issues which attach to them, are peculiarly liable both to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. To this class belongs the ship subsidy bill, a measure which has been defined and explained by its friends with a clearness of definition, and an honesty of purpose, that are only equaled by the misrepresentation (much of which we are willing to believe is quite unintentional) with which it has been clouded by its enemies. The confusion of ideas regarding the present state of our shipping interests is due largely to the fact that, in much of the written and spoken discussion of the subject, there has been no distinction made between those shipping interests which are protected and those which are not. To avoid such confusion we will ask our readers to omit from the present consideration that portion of our shipping which is included under the term “lake and coastwise,” and to bear in mind, also, that in excluding this we exclude by far the largest portion of the tonnage that carries the flag of the United States. Our lake and coast- wise shipping must be omitted for the reason that it is secured against fof- eign competition by a sweeping law which forbids any foreign ships from engaging in this particular trade; the fostering effect of which law is seen in the fact that our lake and coastwise traffic is both healthy and highly remunerative, and is increasing by leaps and bounds. When we come to consider our ‘merchant marine, however, we find that it is exposed to the direct competition of maritime nations, who are able to build and operate their ships at a cost so much lower than ourselves, that any hope of suc- cessful competition is out of the question. The ship subsidy bill has been drafted with the idea of affording such assistance to the merchant marine as shall place it on equal terms of competition with the rest of the world. It is a matter of fact, as we shall show, that under existing conditions the United States cannot compete successfully with other nations either in the first cost, the cost of maintenance, or the cost of operation, of ocean- going steamers. It is a matter of opinion, whether, as a question of broad, far-seeing policy, the treasury of the United States should render to tne ship owners such temporary financial assistance, in the early years of a serious and determined effort to move up to our proper position among the maritime nations of the world, as will place us on equal terms, and give us a reasonable hope of being ultimately able to maintain and im- prove our position without such national aid. It is a matter of fact that although the cost of the crude material for ship building is not materially greater in this country than abroad the cost of labor is so considerably greater that there is an ultimate difference in cost per ton of the ship at the date of her launching in favor of the foreign builder of at least 20 per cent. It is a fact that whereas the Pleiades, a 3,750-ton cargo steamer, of 93%4 knots speed, which has the distinction of being considerably the cheap- est cargo steamer ever built in this country, cost $275,000, the British steamer Masconomo, of 4,200 tons, and 10 knots speed, cost only $217,000. It is a fact, moreover, that while the annual charges on the Pleiades, based on the cost of construction, amount to $44,000, the annual charges on the Masconomo amount to only $34,240. It is a matter of fact that while the total annual wages paid to the crew of the Pleiades amounts to $14,580, the total annual wages paid out on the (Miasconomo amounts to only $11,751, while the total wages paid out in one year to the British ship Pinedene, of about the same size and type as the others named, amounts to only $9, 505. It is a matter of fact that a mass of statistics, gathered and digested by the commissioner of navigation for the United States, shows that in the cost of construction of cargo steamers there is an average difference in favor of Great Britain of 20 per cent., and in cost of operation of 331-3 per cent. It is a matter of fact that the possibility of carrying on a profitable competition under such unequal conditions has discouraged the investment of capital in our merchant marine, and has diverted it into the more promising channel offered by our ‘protected and flourishing lake and coastwise trade. It is a matter of fact that owing to the stagnation of our merchant marine we are now paying out annually, at a conservative estimate, $240,000,000 to foreign ship owners for carrying our rapidly increasing exports across the seas. In the presence of these facts we are confronted by the question as to whether it is consistent with the commercial interests of the nation, to say nothing of its proud traditions, that we should be beholden to a for- eign flag for the transport to foreign markets of the multiplied products of our fields and factories. The ship subsidy bill has been drawn up under the conviction that, contemporaneously with the present enormous in- crease in our manufactured exports, there should be a determined national effort to resuscitate our merchant marine, and place ourselves in a position where we car: act as the carriers of our own products and thus secure the rich returns upon our industries, in their entirety, where now so much of it is diverted elsewhere. On the other. hand, the opponents of the bill profess to be perfectly satisfied with the existing situation, and quite willing to allow the foreigner, as long as he can carry our goods more cheaply than ourselves, to do so. Without making any obvious comment upon the unprogressive spirit which lies behind such an attitude, we offer the following considerations: First, that such an attitude means ‘the practical abandonment of any con- siderable development of deep sea shipping in America. Secondly, that this involves that the United States must be destitute of any numerous or adequate auxiliary merchant marine. Just what this implies may be best understood by reference to the deplorable muddle into which our trans- portation was thrown, when we put our little army into ‘Cuba, and en- deavored at the close of the war to bring the disease smitten victims home again. A numerous auxiliary merchant marine is an indispensable access- ory to distant foreign possessions; and it is a fact that, although we dis- dain to designate our little affair in the Philippines by’ ithe name of “war,” it has lately been necessary for our quartermaster department to charter, in addition to our considerable fleet of transports, no less than forty ves- sels to carry supplies to the Philippines alone. Lastly, we invite consider- ation of the fact that if Great Britain, which acts so largely as our carrier on the high seas, were to be at war with us, a contingency which, though unlikely and greatly to be deprecated, is yet a possibility that must never be lost sight of, we should be utterly unable to get our vast and rapidly increasing exports out of the country. Germany could carry but a part of it, and her commercial instincts are not so altruistic but that she would make haste, by an enormous increase in rates, to reap a rich harvest. The loss from this source alone would amount to more than the annual amount of subsidy asked by the present bill for many years to come. The question before us then may be stated succinctly as follows: Is it desirable that the nation as a whole should transfer from the national treasury to the individual ship owners the money equivalent ($9,000,000 a year) of the actual disadvantages under which our ship owners labor as compared with the ship owners of a competing nation? After a careful review of the whole situation, it appears to us that such a policy, if care- fully followed out for a period of years, would so far stimulate ocean- going ship building, that the decreased cost of production due to increased output, the decreased fixed charges, and the decreased cost of operation due to improved ships and better methods, would enable us sooner or later, and rather sooner than later, to dispense with the subsidy and take our place as one of the great maritime nations of the world.—Scientific American. The torpedo boat Bailey, which last month had hard work in trying to reach a speed of 30 knots and finally had to abandon the trials on account of the improper coal supply, was sent over the measured mile in Narragansett bay a few days ago with the same obje¢t in view. The trial was perfectly satisfactory and the best speed was 30.8 knots.