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1901.] DENOUNCES THE SHIPPING BILL. | SENATOR VEST MAKES A BRILLIANT, BITTER AND CAUSTIC SPEKOH AGAINST THE MBASURE -DEOLARES IT TO BE AN INFAMOUS CONSPIRAOY. One of the most Sbler speeches against the shipping bill was delivered in the United States senate a few days ago by Senator Vest of Missouri. Vest is physically much emaciated and has been a great sufferer during the past two years. The mere struggle to surmount a physical limitation added force to the speech and it was in effect one of the most dramatic that has been delivered in the house. For more than two hours he held the senate within the fascination of his wit, his satire, his eloquence, his logic, his phenomenal command of his mother tongue, his vigorous de~ nunciation of all things which to him seemed unrighteous—this little old man with the wasted figure and the thin and piercing voice. He de- nounced the shipping bill as a conspiracy of the New England shipping interests. He declared that the decline of the merchant marine was due to infamous navigation laws which refused an American citizen the right to buy ships where he could buy them cheapest and then sail them under the flag of his country. “These navigation laws are a relic of barbarism, yea, worse,” ex- claimed the senator from Missouri, ‘because they came from an mere coalition between the shipping interests of New England and the African slave trade. In the constitutional convention of 1787 there were pending two provisions, one to require a two-thirds vote of each house to enact “navigation laws, the other to extend the African slave trade to 1800. They were referred to a committee, and that committee reported in favor. ot striking out the clause requiring a two-thirds vote in each house to enact navigation laws and extending the African slave trade till 1808. The peo- ple of New England were anxious for navigation laws because they had | just commenced constructing those fast clipper ships and the business was exceedingly profitable. The southern states, Georgia and the two Caro- linas, were anxious to extend the African slave trade because the culture of cotton was becoming more profitable and they wanted more negro labor. New England had sold her negroes to the south, but there were not enough of them. When the report was made to. the convention John Pinckney of South Carolina moved an amend- ment extending the slave trade to 1808, and Gorham of Massachu- setts seconded it. Madison and Mason of old Virginia vehemently de- nounced the proposition, declaring that it was an insult to the humanity and intelligence of the American people, and a vote was taken, each state casting one vote. All the New England states, with New York, Maryland, ~ Georgia, North and South Carolina voted _in the affirmative, while Vir- ginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey voted in the negative. Hand-in-hand Massachusetts and North Carolina marched at the head or the procession, carrying in one hand the ship building interests of New England and in the other the African slave trade. The south has paid a terrible penalty for that infamous conspiracy. She paid for it in 1861 with tears and ashes and blood. Today her social system is deranged and her industrial system destroyed, and the man is a bold one who can prophesy what will be the result in the future. But New England is rich and powerful; New Englanders have made money in every contingency and in every era in the history of our country. First they drove back the Indians, took their lands and sold many of their chiefs into slavery in the West Indies. Then they pursued with great profit the African slave trade, and finally, in a war waged against the people to whom they had sold ‘their negroes after they had found them unprofitable, they had government — contracts which filled every savings bank in New England, until now they are the most powerful and richest relatively of all the sections of this country. DENOUNCES NEW ENGLAND FROM THE DAYS OF PLYMOUTH ROCK. “I am not attacking the people of New England; I admire them. I admire their courage, their sagacity, their aggressiveness. With a sterile soil and an inhospitable climate, they-control the politics and the policy | of the United States. They send their ablest men to both branches of congress, and they keep them there as long as they can preserve the material interests of that section. It makes no difference how these rep- resentatives and senators may differ with the people as to matters of sentiment and abstraction. If they are true to the material interests ot New England that is enough. The two senators from Maine differ as widely as the north and the south pole upon the foreign policy of the United States, but they are put here today by the ultimatum vote of the legislature of Maine. The two senators from ‘Massachusetts are equally diverse in their opinion as to the Philippine question and the Philippine war, but the people of Massachusetts send them both here because they know their ability and recognize their usefulness. I hope I may be par- doned for quoting what a very eminent son of Massachusetts once said, that ‘when the pilgrim fathers landed on Plymouth rock they fell on their knees, then fell on the aborigines.’ “New England is properly named,’ Senator Vest,.continued. “Old England, the little island upon the fogs and mists of .the northern oceans, controls the literature and finance and commerce of the world. New England, six small states, a majority of them not as large as counties in Missouri, control the politics of the whole United States... There is no measure here before the senate or the other branch of congress in which New England does not receive the largest share of the government bounty. Take this bill and you will see between the lines that it is a New England bill. Its chief sponsor is my friend the junior senator from Maine (Mr. Frye), who has given his life to the cause of navigation laws and is op- posed to free ships. The navigation laws are today as dear to the people of New England as when they wanted a monopoly of constructing ships. This bill was drawn by the most astute New England lawyer in existence, ex-Senator Edmunds, and his handicraft can be seen in every sentence and line of it. It is no surprise that my friend from Maine so vehemently advocates this bill, because it is in entire cognizance with his opinion in regard to the taxation system of the United States. In a speech delivered some years ago before the Home Market Club in Boston that distin- guished senator declared that if he had the power he would not allow another potind of English goods to come into this country to compete with the product of American manufacturers, and I have no doubt today that but for the profit of the export trade he and the majority of his col- leagues would favor the plan-of Henry Clay, the father of protection, who MARINE ep sl cceritch nail z ehiatwalacaman 19 declared that if he could he would have made the Atlantic ocean an ocean of fire over which no foreign ship could pass. THE BILL IS THE ESSENOE OF EXOLUSION. “This bill breathes the essence of exclusion. The principle upon which it is based is so obnoxious to the civilization of the world that even Chinahas abandoned it, but we adhere to it, and the people of the United States are asked now to give up their tax money to the enormous amount of $180,000,000 in twenty years in order to maintain this exclusive prin- ciple. When England began capturing the carrying trade of the world with iron steamships some people in this country thought it time to re- peal the navigation laws so citizens of the United States might buy ships abroad and sail them. Instead of repealing these infamous navigation _ laws, a nightmare on the merchant marine of the country, New England was able, by her political influence, to retain them upon the statute books, where they are today; and the result was that our merchant marine com- menced in 1855 to decline until it has gone down, wasted like a patient with lung disease, until it can hardly be said now to exist at all. Ger- many, under the leadership of that great statesman, Bismarck, by far the greatest man in a hundred years this world has seen, finding’ that Great Britain was manufacturing these iron ships and that the merchant marine of Germany was disappearing from the ocean, immediately permitted her people to go to the ‘Clyde and purchase their ships. Eight fleet iron ships were constructed in the yards of Armstrong and brought back to Ger- many and put under the German flag and the largest steamship in the German merchant marine today, the Oder, was built in Stockholm by German citizens and brought back and put ‘under the German flag. The result was that the ship yards of Germany commenced to thrive.under the repairs necessary to these ships bought abroad, and during the last two years Germany has sold over forty war ships ‘to foreign powers and is now competing successfully through her ship yards with those of the British Empire. “We are told dramatically by the senator from Maine and by the sen- ator from Ohio that the commerce of this country would be absolutely destroyed in the event of a naval war between two European powers; that, having no ships of our own, our exports would cease, our factories would close, our mines would be ‘hermetically sealed and the agricultural pro- ducts of this country would rot in the warehouses. The senator from Maine draws a ghastlv picture of naval war between Germany and Eng- - land, and asks what would then become of the interests of the United States in such a contingency. Suppose a naval war should come—a great calamity—between Germany and England, and the United States congress should then repeal the navigation laws and permit our citizens to buy ships where they could buy them cheapest and put them under our flag. Nine-tenths of the merchant marine of England and Germany would be for sale the minute such a war commenced, because with the improved war ships now upon the ocean and being built—steel clad cruisers run- ning 23 knots an hour with heavy guns that cast solid shot and shell from nine to twelve miles—every merchant vessel would hunt its harbor and remain there until peace was declared and be for sale to the highest and ' best bidder, no matter what the price. “Repeal the navigation laws in such a contingency and you could buy the merchant marine for one-third what it cost to construct it. We could name our own price. They would be glad to let us have their ships and to see the flag of the United States placed at their mastheads.” STEAMBOATS ON THE UPPER CONGO. Twenty years ago Henry 'M. Stanley, who had reached Stanley Pool to begin his five years’ work planting stations on the river, launched the first steamer on the waters of the Pool. It was the little En Avant of five tons burden, In the twenty years that have since elapsed Europe has not failed in a single year to send more steamers to ply on the great African river. There are today 103 steamboats traveling up and down the upper Congo and its tributaries or preparing in the ship yards at Stanley Pool for launching. The flotilla has taken a prominent part in the pacific con- ~ quest and the economic expansion of the new Congo country. It has been very prominent in the work of exploration and of occupation. With- out these steamers it would not have been possible to start so many trad- ing and other stations. They could not, without the steamers, have pro- cured sufficient supplies. The steamers also made it possible to develop the ivory and rubber trades, which have now reached large proportions. Belgian enterprise has placed nearly half of these vessels on the river. The fleet of the Congo Free State numbers twenty-nine vessels, and Bel- gian trading companies have nineteen steamers, making a total of forty- .eight vessels owned and controlled by Belgian enterprises. The most im- portant fleet after that of the Belgians is the French flotilla. In the past two years the French have sent thirty-nine boats to Brazzaville on Stanley Pool, and most of them have been launched. The Dutch traders own ten vessels, the Germans two and English and American missionary societies have four steamers in their service. It was a gigantic undertaking to transport the first fifty steamers to the upper river. They had to be car- _ ried piece by piece on the backs of men. Not a few of the larger vessels were divided into more than a thousand man loads; and after these myriad pieces were unloaded at Stanley Pool months were required to rivet them together and prepare the vessel for launching. So nearly eighteen years were taken in placing the first fifty steamboats on the upper river. ‘A very different chapter in Congo history has been written in the past two years since the opening of the railroad from Matadi to Stanley Pool. ithin the past twenty-four months half of the upper Congo fleet of fifty vessels have been carried on the cars to the Pool. While a month was required to carry the earlier boats over the mountains and down into the valleys along the 235 miles between the lower Congo and the Pool, an entire boat is now carried over the route in two days. Thus the railroad has facili- tated placing steamers on-the upper river; and now both railroad and steam vessels are working together in the ‘commercial expansion of the country. Light-ship No. 72, built by the Fore River Engine Co., Quincy Point, Mass., for duty on the Diamond shoals, was given her builders’ trial trip last week and proved in every way satisfactory. This vessel has the repu- tation of being the staunchest light-vessel in the world. It is to do duty in the most treacherous bit of water to be found anywhere on the Atlantic coast.