use the advantage gained by the revolution from wood to iron and sails to steam.

Third: The steady and systematic encouragement and aid given by Great Britain to British steamship lines and ship-yards by means of postal subsidies, construction grants, and government contracts, while the United States, with two or three temporary exceptions, has refused to extend any aid to American ship-yards or steamship lines. Between 1840 and 1887 the government of Great Britain expended about $250,000,000 in postal subsidies to aid in the establishment and maintenance of British steamship lines, in addition to giving liberal contracts for building government vessels to encourage the establishment and enlargement of private ship-yards. The suggestion has been made that within a few years she has been less liberal in her grants in this direction than formerly. That is true, but this has come about from the fact that prior subsidies had accomplished their purpose. But let British lines be seriously endangered by the competition of lines established by other nations, and the British Government would at once come forward with all necessary assistance.

Fourth: The civil war, which let loose the Alabamas that drove one third of our shipping in the foreign trade from the ocean, and gave Great Britain an opportunity to get far ahead in the race for ocean supremacy by building up great iron shipyards and establishing her lines of steamships to all parts of the world while our hands were tied.

Fifth: The unexampled internal development of the United States in the two decades succeeding the close of the war, which engrossed the energies and capital of our people in extending our manufacturing industries, building railroads, and developing the new West, and which yielded profits that invited investments, while no profits could be reaped on the ocean in free competition with foreign ships. The investment in railroad construction in the United States in excess of a similar investment in the United Kingdom in a single year (1882) would have built two hundred of the finest ocean steamships afloat.

The situation, then, may be briefly stated as follows:

The American merchant marine in the foreign trade has been well-nigh driven from the ocean because the change from wooden sailing vessels to iron and steel steamships in ocean transportation has enabled foreign vessels employing cheaper labor, and to a large extent aided by their governments, to run at a less cost than American vessels engaged in the only business in this country open to foreign competition on free-trade principles-the only business which has experienced what freetraders describe as "the salutary neglect of the government."

If we could return to the conditions which existed when wooden sailing-vessels, requiring small crews, controlled the ocean carrying trade, we could hold our own. But we cannot. Even in the face of the revolution from wood to iron and sails to steam, and in the face of European subsidies, our vessels would hold their own if we could return to the protective legislation which imposed higher charges on foreign vessels and higher duties on their cargoes than on our own vessels and their cargoes. But it is undoubtedly impracticable to do this now that the principle of maritime reciprocity has obtained so firm a foothold. The die was cast when the United States tendered and Great Britain in 1850 accepted this rule of ocean transportation.

The only possible way now in which we can give our shipping in the foreign trade as effective protection against foreign competition as we give all other industries by tariff duties is through direct aid by government-substantially the same as Great Britain gave her merchant marine and her ship-yards before their supremacy had been established, and substantially the same as France and Italy are to-day giving their shipping by their construction and navigation bounties.

And this aid, too, can be extended, not by resorting to revenue derived from ordinary taxation, but by drawing from the revenue of twenty-eight millions of dollars derived by the United States Treasury since the war from the tax imposed on tonnage engaged in the foreign trade.

The Democratic party in Congress, with a few noteworthy exceptions, have, up to this time, taken the ground that Con gress ought not to directly or indirectly aid American shipping

in the foreign trade, either by postal subsidies or by navigation or construction bounties, with the view of encouraging the construction and maintenance of American steamships and sailing-vessels for commercial purposes and for a naval reserve in time of war. At the second session of the Forty-eighth Congress, the Democratic House after a long contest concurred in an amendment appropriating $400,000 to extend more liberal pay to American steamship lines carrying American mails, -nearly all the Republicans and thirty Democrats supporting the proposition; but Postmaster-General Vilas refused to carry out the policy indicated by Congress, and the House has since. refused to join the Senate in inaugurating the policy of encouraging the establishment of American steamship lines.

At the second session of the Forty-ninth Congress the House Committee on the Merchant Marine, by a vote of all the Democratic members but one, reported adversely a bill looking to the revival of the American merchant marine in the foreign trade by a navigation bounty similar to that now in force in France and Italy, and by the same vote reported the free-ship bill favorably. All the Republican members of the committee and one Democrat favored the first measure and opposed the free-ship bill. These two bills were reported in the same way, and on the same division, at the first session of the Fiftieth Congress.

On the one hand, the great body of the Democratic Congressmen take the ground that if our citizens are permitted to import and register foreign-built ships as American vessels free of duty, then the American merchant marine in the foreign trade will slowly revive. They further hold that if this result does not follow, then it will be demonstrated that foreigners can carry on the business of ocean transportation more cheaply than we can, and they should be allowed to do so without resort to government encouragement or assistance.

On the other hand, the great body of the Republican Con gressmen oppose the free-ship policy as inadequate as a meas. ure to increase our tonnage, destructive of our ship-building interests, subversive of our commercial independence, and dangerous in view of its tendency to deprive the nation of

ship-building plants as a resource for the construction of cruisers and transports in time of war. They further hold that an expenditure of a few millions of dollars annually as a navigation bounty and postal subsidy would not only be the most economical method of securing a naval reserve, guarding against national dangers and providing for national defense, but also a judicious and profitable expenditure to extend our foreign trade and build up a powerful merchant marine which in ten or fifteen years would secure such a foothold as to be able to stand alone.

History shows that no nation ever reached the highest prosperity or developed permanent influence and power, unless it possessed an effective merchant marine built in its own shipyards, and carrying its flag and its prestige to the countries of the earth. The empire of the world is on the rocking waves as well as on the rock-ribbed land.

OUR FOREIGN TRADE.

BY HON. JULIUS C. BURROWS, M. C. FROM MICHIGAN.

THE Democratic party in their fierce and persistent assault upon our protective system has never hesitated to employ any weapon or device which would be of advantage to them in the attack.

To this end they constantly assert, in the face of the wellestablished fact to the contrary, that our protective policy, as established and maintained by the Republican party, tends to cripple, and will if persisted in ultimately destroy, our foreign trade; and that, on the contrary, the abandonment of such a policy and the adoption of free trade or a revenue tariff would greatly stimulate international traffic, and materially enhance our commercial prosperity. In controverting this assumption it must not be inferred that its refutation is deemed essential to a vindication of the wisdom of our protective policy, for even if it were true that our foreign commerce would be augmented by adopting free trade, yet it is affirmed that it would be the supremest folly to abandon a system which in its practical workings has so developed our industries and diversified our products as to render us measurably independent of foreign nations for the necessities and even the luxuries of life. No foreign trade, however opulent, could possibly compensate for the impairment or loss of our domestic commerce. If, however, upon examination it shall be found that under protection our foreign trade has had a steady and healthy growth, not only will the Democratic assumption that it has declined be refuted, but the wisdom of our protective policy will be doubly vindicated.

No more direct or complete refutation of the charge that protection cripples our foreign trade can be presented than the following table, prepared by the statistician of the Treasury Department, showing the extent of such trade, each year, since