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6 THE MARINE RECORD. Ee inetniniinirtmamce SE CRAMP ON SHIPBUILDING. LETTER TO SENATE COMMITTEE. A meeting of representatives of the shipping interests was held in the room of the Senate Committee on Com- merce at Washington. Among those present were: C. A. Griscom, W. P. Clyde, T. W. Hyde, A. R. Smith, C. H. Cramp, Samuel S. Sewall, H. P. Booth, E. Bliss, Aaron Vanderbilt, D. C. Mink, F. J. Firth, C. H. Keep, ex-Sena- tor G. F. Edmunds and Senators Frye, Elkins, Hanna and Perkins. The meeting was held for the purpose of pro- moting legislation looking to the encouragement of Amer- ican shipping. There was a general exchange of views. Senator Elkins’ bill providing for a discriminating duty on goods imported in American vessels afforded a basis for much of the proceedings, but there was a want of unanimity of opinion upon all of its provisions. Mr. Gris- com presided and the meeting was private. Several addresses were made during the day by those in attendance, one of the most important being the following decidedly interesting and important letter from Charles H. Cramp, Esq., president of the Cramp Shipbuilding Com- pany. It presents the shipbuilders’ side of protection for American ships very forcibly: “Sirs We have to deal with real facts and actual condi- tions. The interests of shipowning and shipbuilding are identical because no nation can successfully own ships that cannot successfully build them. No nation can either build or own ships when, unpro- tected and unencouraged, it is brought in competition with other nations that are protected and encouraged. “This is the existing condition of the shipowning and shipbuilding interests of the United States. The resulting fact is that the enormous revenue repre- sented by the freight and passenger tolls on our commerce and travel is constantly drained out of this country into British, German and French pockets, in the order named, but mainly British; while the vast industrial increment represented by the necessary shipbuilding inures almost wholly to Great Britain. For this drain there is no recompense. It is sheer loss. It is the principal cause of our existing financial condition. So long as this drain continues no tariff and no mone- tary policy can restore the national prosperity. Until we make some provision to keep at home part at least of the three hundred and odd millions annually suck- ed out of this country by foreign shipowners and ship- builders, no other legislation can bring good times back again; ; It-is a.constant stream of gold always flowing out. ‘The foreign shipowner who carries our oversea com- merce makes us pay the freight both ways. For our. exports we get the foreign market less the freight. For our imports we pay the foreign market price plus the freight. No finespun theory of.any cloistered or collegiate doc- trinaire can wipe out these facts. -The fact that so long as the freight is paid to a foreign shipowner, so long will it be a foreign product, is funda- mental and unanswerable. The English steamship is'a foreign product, and its earn- ings, which we pay, are a foreign benefit. ’’No sane man will argue that a foreign profit on a foreign product can be a domestic benefit. Add to this the fact, equally important, that the carrier of commerce controls its exchanges and the conditions of haa Great. Britain has many outlying colonies and depend- encies... : The greatest two are India and the United States. ; She holds India by force of arms, whereby her control of that country costs her something. She had to pay some- thing for her financial and commercial drainage of India. She holds the United States by the folly of its own peo- ple, whereby her control of this country costs her nothing. She has to pay nothing for her financial and commercial drainage of the United States. But the amount of her annual drainage of gold from the United States far exceeds that from India. ‘Therefore, the United States is by far the most valuable of all dependencies of Great Britain. ‘In the relation of England to India there is something pitiable because India is helpless. -In relation of the United States to England there is nothing that is not contemptible, because it is the willing servitude of a nation that could help herself if she would. England is wide awake to these conditions and keenly appreciates their priceless value to her. _ The United States blinks at them, half dazed, half asleep, insensible of their tremendous damage to her. England ‘clearly seeing that, in this age, more than ever before, ocean-empire is world-empire, strains every nerve to perpetuate her sea power and exhausts her resources to double-rivet the fetters which it fastens upon mankind. Though in 1885 England already had a navy superior to those of any two and equal to those of any three other powers, her new navy, with what remains most available of the old one, overshadows the world and makes the sea as much British territory as the county of Middlesex. Since 1885 England has expended $517,000,000 for new ships of war and their armament. During eleven years she has built thirty-eight first-class battleships, three second- class battleships, nine armored cruisers, twenty first-class cruisers, fifty-one second-class cruisers, thirty-three third- class cruisers; thirty gunboats; twelve composite sloops, and seventy-four torpedo destroyers, including the vessels authorized in the current year’s program. The aggregate is 270 vessels of 1,136,575 tons total. dis- placement, 1,674,700 horse power. Of the navy England already had in 1885, there remain available 42 armored ships, 34 cruisers, 11 sloops, 19 gun- boats and 95 torpedo boats, which she is re-engining, re- arming and otherwise modernizing as rapidly as she can. In personnel afloat she has augmented her force from 52,600 in 1885 to 100,500 in the estimates for 1897. In other words, England has doubled her navy in per- sonnel and material and more than quadrupled it in war- like efficiency during eleven years of the profoundest peace the world ever saw. Even greater exertions has England put forth in the aug- mentation of her merchant marine. d year 1896 she added 1,380,000 tons of new steel steam ship-~ ping to her merchant fleet, breaking up meantime 530,000 tons of old and obsolete shipping which could no longer be operated profitably; a net addition of 850,000 tons to the total of her merchant marine by the register, but a practical addition of the whole 1,380,000 tons, because the 530,000 tons broken up had done its work for her aggran- dizement and simply passed through the scrap heap and the mills into the new tonnage. No great fact can exist without a great reason. In recent years Germany, on a large scale and in a sys- tematic way, and this country, on a small scale and in a spasmodic way, have put forth efforts in the direction of sea power. England instantly takes alarm. To her the growth of any other sea power, even if its scope be comparatively small and its extent comparatively feeble, is a peril second only to the landing of an invading army in Kent. England is determined that she shall be not only the su- preme sea power, but also that except within limits set by herself there shall be no other‘sea power at all. She will tolerate the growth of any other sea power only so far as the point at which it begins to affect her naval supremacy or dispute the ocean monopoly of her merchant marine. The moment any other national aspiration toward sea power reaches that point England must be prepared to crush it. She wil crush it by intrigue, by cajolery, by treaties, if she can. She will crush it by preponderating force if she must. Ever since.two first-class American ships were put in the transatlantic trade under American management every de- vice of foul play that selfish ingenuity can invent and every resort that unscrupulous rivalry can suggest have been ex- hausted by the English press and the English administra- tion to defame and discredit them. English officials abroad, from ministers and- consuls down, industriously reproduce in the newspapers of Japan, Chili, Argentine and Brazil the misstatements of the Eng- lish press about American vessels. The British postoffice delays the American mails for days in the slower ships of the Cunard line, rather than send so much as one letter by the American line. Our postoffice responds by liberal allotments of its Eu- ropean mails to all the British lines. The result of all this is that while this country has never known such industrial stagnation and such financial dis- tress, England has never known such industrial activity and financial prosperity as now. Does it not occur to men who look the least bit below the surface that the warfare for ocean-empire and the strife for commanding sea-power, which England forces upon the rest of mankind, have reached a stage so acute that her prosperity unalterably means the misery of every- body else, and that everybody’s loss is inevitably her gain? What is the response of the United States to this tre- mendous exertion of English energy and resource to the aggrandizement of her sea power? To the English estimates for the current year for further increase of her navy amounting to eleven million nine hundred and five thousand pounds sterling, say $57,334,- 500, and a program involving 108 new ships in all stages between laying down and completion, the United States responds by a sudden halt in even the comparatively feeble program fitfully pursued since 1885, and a flat collapse of the new policy of the new navy as a whole. To the 1,380,000 tons of new merchant shipping built by England during the past year, what will be the response of the United States? Now the future lies wholly in the hands of Congress. From that quarter comes no sign. _A tariff bill framed to produce revenue, and at the same time to promote and encourage American industries, is to be passed. To greater or less extent this tariff is calcu- During the calendar - lated to promote and encourage every American industry but two—shipowning and shipbuilding. t As I have already said, this ceaseless ebb of gold with- out compensation is the tribute this country pays to Eng- land, and it is paid through English shipowners. ce. The United States has never been able to get any of it back except by borrowing it on bonds. England is keenly alive to these great economic facts and their results. Is the United States to be forever blind to them and their significance? These are the questions which confront us. Very respectfully, (Signed. CHAS. H. CRAMP. naa NOTICE TO MARINERS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA—NORTHERN LAKES AND RIVERS—MICHIGAN. Treasury Department, Office of the Light House Board, Washington, D. C., May 8, 1897. HERSON ISLAND UPPER LIGHT, NO. 9. Notice is hereby given that, on or about May 15, 1807, this fixed red tubular lantern light, at the edge of the tim- ber, near the lower end of Herson Island, St. Clair River, will be moved nearer to Herson Island Middle Light, No. 8, making the distance between the lights about 525 feet. By order of the Light-House Board: Ws 9:59 CEGLAY Captain, U. S. Navy, Chairman. THE POE LOCK IS ALL RIGHT. An article has gone the rounds of the press reflecting on the new lock at St. Mary’s Falls Canal and a good deal of interest has been manifested relative to whether the ma- chinery would hold out for the season or not. The follow- ing correspondence on the question will give owners and masters full confidence in the prompt and accurate work- ing of the new lock at the “‘Soo.” ae: United States Engineer Office, Detroit, Mich., May 7, 1897. Editor Marine Record, Cleveland, O. Having recently noticed that several newspapers have published items relating to the Poe Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, which convey grossly incorrect ideas concerning its operating machinery, I think that it will interest ves- selmen to have a direct statement of the true condition of affairs, and therefore transmit to you the enclosed copy of letter from the general superintendent of the canal, believing that you will be pleased to publish it in the next issue of your paper. Very respectfully, G. J. LYDECKER, Lieut. Colonel, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army. Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., May 5, 1807. Editor of the Marine Record, Cleveland, O. Sir: The machinery of the Poe Lock is and has been working in a very satisfactory manner since the opening of navigation. Last season there were some parts that proved to be too weak and wore out rapidly. During the winter these parts have all been made new and of stronger pattern. They are now and have been working well and there need be no apprehension among those using the canal that there will be any delay caused by the machinery. Very respectfully, E.S. WHEELER, Asst. Engr. and Genl. Supt. TT EE oe A PROMINENT LAKE SHIPYARD. Weare glad to learn that the shipbuilding firm of Wheeler & Co., W. Bay City, Mich., Have been nace consummate the proposition made to creditors in Feb- ruary last whereby 90 per cent of the creditors accept in lieu of cash bonds which run from two to seven years bearing 6 per cent interest, for their claims. This was a remarkable feat of financiering in these troublous times and shows in what esteem Mr. Wheeler is held by the gen- tlemen with whom he has done business for many years We predict that with the recurrence of good times in the building of lake ships that this firm will have no trouble ane out tele aiticulties, and that the reputation ey hold for building first- i than made good in the fore: Sy ue cnn Mie ee Mr. Wheeler's health, which last year was such that he could not give his personal attention to his yard, has been entirely restored, and he is now able to take hold of things with his old time vigor. This will be especially gratifying to his hundreds of personal friends, and will make his creditors feel that their s curity will be greatly enhanced by his being able to pers®nally oversee the thousands of beet tee this great establishment. nthe reorganization of the company the beginnin the year S. T. Crapo, general manager of the Flint & Boo Marquette Railroad Company, of Saginaw, Mich., and H. M. Gillett and C. W. Stiver, of Bay City, Mich., were the new directors. The directors subsequently elected officers as follows: F. W. Wheeler, president; H. T. Wickes, of Saginaw, Mich., vice president; C. Y. Stiver; secretary and Jno. S. Porter, of Saginaw, Mich., treasurer. : This firm has just closed a contract for a large ocean tug to be used at New Orleans, mention of which was made in a previous issue. This firm has under consideration a Proposition to locate in a thriving city, the expense of moving and site to be donated. Matters are not yet far oe advanced for the public to be taken into confi- ence.