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gation Co., was launched at Toronto, Monday. to present plans the new Greyhound for the White Star DEVOTED 0 NAVIGATION, COMMERCE, ENGINEERING : AND SCIENCE. ESTABLISHED 1878. PusiisHep Every THURSDAY. BY THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO. Incorporated. GB AARUSKING fase ctecids ouccess Rd cane hee aes Manager Capt. JOHN SWAINSON.........00eeeeeeeee ee as Editor CLEVELAND, CHICAGO. Western Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. SUBSCRIPTION. One copy, one vear, postage paid..........+seeeeeees $2.00 One copy, one year, to foreign COWMNETICS ec) «je)sicie sve se $3.00 Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. fe eee an a wre Re All communications should Be addressed to the Cleveland office, THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO. Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, O. Entered at Cleveland Postoffice as second-class nzail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes of contributors as to the use of their names will be scrupulously regarded. CLEVELAND, O., FEBRUARY 6, 1902. THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL. The new ship subsidy bill has. been launched favor- ably. The bill differs in many respects from that intro- duced into the last Congress and its framers aimed to overcome the objections to the former measure. The first section of the bill takes the postal subsidy law of 1891 as a basis and restores the rates practically to what they were in the bill as it originally passed the Senate. It in- creases the tonnage required in that law and makes a class of each knot above 14 up to 20; it provides that all -Americam ships engaged in foreign trade shall receive one cent a ton for every 100 miles sailed and that at least one- fourth of the crew of each vessel receiving subsidy must be Americans. No foreign-built. ships are admitted to American register; vessels must be built in a manner sat- isfactory to the Secretary of the Navy, and must be capa- ble of being used for the purposes of national defense in time of war. “There is,’ says Senator Frye, in speaking of the bill, - “nothing in it that is favorable to any of the trans-Atlantic lines, and there is nothing whatever to encourage the com- bination in so-called trust form of any large shipping cor- _porations. The shipbuilding industries all along our coasts will get renewed life and stimulation by the increased demands for American vessels.” The foregoing are the views of the framer of the bill and certainly seem to be based on a proper understanding of the needs of American shipping and American shippers, the advisability of taking American trade out of the hands of foreigners and carrying American goods in American bottoms not being disputed. The only question in the minds of the opponents of the ‘bill is whether or not this is the best way to secure such a desirable consummation. £3 —<—<—<——— ae or . Our thanks are due the U. S. Department of Agricul- ture, Weather Bureau, for a copy of the meteorological ~ chart of the Great Lakes, summary for the season of I9OI, by Alfred J. Henry and Norman B. Conger, prepared under ‘direction of Willis L. Moore, Chief U. S. Weather Bureau. The steamer Montreal, building for the Richelieu Navi- According ~ Line, will be launched at Wyandotte one week from next Saturday. The name of the Hart line steamer City of Louisville has been changed to Harriet A. Hart. The a ane is to be given a steam steerer. THE MARINE RECORD. THE SHIP SUBSIDY BILL. It sometimes happens that in response to the question, “What's in a name?”. we have to answer, “Just. every- thing.” There is now up for discussion in Congress a measure which we do not hesitate to designate as one of the most important ever brought before that body, that is in danger of suffering shipwreck simply and solely because of the unfortunate name which it carries. Unfortunately a large number of the American people have conceived a violent prejudice against the term “subsidy.” Apparently they look upon subsidizing as a kind of alms-giving, a sort of feudal scattering of largess, with the difference that the recipients, instead of being supposedly impoverished and helpless, are among the powerful and wealthy of the land. As a matter of fact, shipping subsidies means nothing of the kind. ‘They are based upon the conviction that between the individual shipowner and the nation at large there is, in respect of the up-building and extending of the shipping industry, with all the indirect and enormous national bene- fits that are to be derived therefrom, a profound commu- nity of interest. It is realized that the assistance given by the nation to the shipowner is to be temporary only, and that in its intrinsic value it is altogether disproportionate to the great and lasting national advantages to be derived from the rehabilitation of the merchant marine. In discussing the subject it is best, at the outset, to distinguish clearly between our “lake and coastwise” and our “deep-sea” shipping. The former is wonderfully prosperous; the latter is not; and the difference is due to that very condition of things which the pending subsidy bill is expected to remedy. Our lake and coastwise ship- ping is protected against foreign competition by an ironclad law which prohibits foreign ships engaging in the lake and coastwise trade; and the stimulating effect of this law is seen in the fact that this branch of shipping interests of the country is in a flourishing condition, and although it is highly remunerative, there has been a steady reduction of rates. In 1870 it cost as high as $3.50 to transport a ‘ton of freight from Lake Superior to ports on Lake Erie, while to-day the ruling rate is from 60 cents to $1 per ton. : Our merchant. marine, on the other hand, is in direct competition with that of foreign nations, who are able to build and operate their ships so much more cheaply than ourselves that it is out of the question to compete suc- cessfully against them and the object of the ship subsidy bill is to make up, by a certain schedule of payments to the ship-owners, the actual loss to which they would be exposed were they to attempt competition on a large scale with foreign ship-owners. The proposal to extend government aid is qualified by the understanding that such assistance is only to be rendered until we have moved up to our proper position among the maritime nations of the world. Long before our deep-sea shipping has increased to the magnitude of the lake and coastwise shipping, the cheapening of the cost of production which we may reasona- bly expect to follow the introduction of American labor- saving devices into shipyard work, will place us in a position where we can compete successfully with foreign shipyards. By that time the ship-building industry will be strong enough to hold its own without government assistance. The sum spent in subsidies should be looked upon as a very small price to pay for the multiplied benefits that will accrue from the resumption of our former proud position as the leading maritime nation of the world. Our present disadvantageous position is shown by the following facts: While the raw materials of ship con- struction cost but little more in this country than abroad, the cost of labor is so much greater that the final cost per ton of the vessel at the time of launching is 20 per cent more here than abroad. From the report of the Com- missioner of Navigation on the subject, we learn that the cheapest cargo steamer ever built in this country, the “Pleiades,” of 3,750 tons and 934 knots speed, cost $275,000, while the British cargo steamer “Mascomo,” of 4,200 tons and 10 knots speed, cost only $217,000, ‘The annual charges on the “Pleiades” are $44,000; on the “Masconomo” $34,240. ‘The total annual wages for the crew of the “Pleiades’ amount to $14,588; -while the total annual wages on the larger ship amount to only $11,751. As a result of the Commissioner of Navigation’s inquiry, it was shown that there is an average difference in favor of Great Britain of 20 per cent. in the cost of constructing FEBRUARY 6,1 cargo steamers, and of 33% per cent. in the cost of opera. — tion: 4 Under such conditions profitable competition with Euro; is simply out of the question, and American capital naturally found its way into the protected and_ highly remunerative coastwise’ shipbuilding and carrying trade. As the result. of our withdrawl from, or rather failur to enter, the competition for the world’s carrying tra we ‘are paying out annually the huge sum of $200,000,000 to foreign ship-owners for carrying our great and growing volume of exports to foreign countries. in the presene of this startling fact, we are brought face to face with the question as to whether it is consistent with the dignity, and conducive to the best commercial interests’ of the © country, that we should be indebted to foreign’ nations for the transportation of the products of our fields an factories, and that we should be paying out this great sum of money to foreign firms, when it might just as well form part of the legitimate annual profits of American industry. There are some Americans, it is true, who frankly assert that they are content to let matters remain as they are; but we must not forget that their attitude means the indefinite postponement of any revival of American deep- sea shipping, and that we, who before the days of our civil war-were the greatest deep-sea carrying nation in the world, must be content, in spite of our. ever-increasing wealth and importance, to continue to hold an inferior position. The resuscitation of our merchant marine has an im- portant bearing on our position as a naval power. An adequate merchant marine is necessary to any naval country that is to be in a position to transport its troops with speed and safety to a: distant center of operations. We all remember the difficulty which we experienced in carrying troops to Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines during the late war; and now that we ‘have extensive foreign possessions, the value of an adequate auxiliary navy has increased. enormously. A consideration of the problems of transportation which would suddenly confront us were the Philippines, for instance, made the object of attack by a foreign power, should prove to us the wisdom of subsidizing fast and well-built merchant ships which, in the time of war, could be quickly armed and utilized as consorts to the slower transports, in which troops and munitions of war would be carried. Lastly, it should be borne in mind that since practicall the whole of our foreign trade is carried in foreign bottoms, a war between any of the maritime nations would result : in a paralysis of deep-sea commerce and a temporary extinction of our export trade. On the other hand, if we posessed our own merchant fleet we could view such a struggle in its effect upon our carrying trade with com- parative equanimity.—-Scientific American. ee I own OPENING AND CLOSING OF NAVIGATION, 1901. Navigation opened at the Straits of Mackinac on April 14 with the passage of the steamer Pentland, at 8:40 a. m, from Lake Michigan into Lake Huron, and was closed for the season with the passage west of the steamer James Watts, coal laden, for Milwaukee, 11 a. m., December 20. The Watts had some difficulty in making passage from Lake Erie to Lake Huron on account of ice. The canal locks at Sault Ste. Marie opened on April 27 for the passage of the first boat up, the tug Maxwell, and were closed for the season on December 11; the last vessel bound down was the steamer Clyde, with barge Amboy in tow, which locked through at 3:16 p. m. The last vessel through the Detroit river bound down was the steamer J. H. Schrigley, on December 15, and the last passage up was the steamer James Watts, on De- cember 17, closing general navigation for the season. : The ice blockade in the St. Clair River was one of © the features of the opening of navigation. The river was practically closed with ice for.22 days, from April 16 to May 8, during which time navigation was open on. the other lakes. Considerable damage was occasioned by collisions: in the ice jam, and also from damage to vessels by the ice. At one time there were 20 vessels fast in the block- ade between Port Huron and the Flats. _ — oOo Work on the third steamer to be turned out at the West _ Superior shipyard is now so well under way that all of her frames are expected to be in position by the close of the present week.