the builders of their ships, should be held responsible for or be injured by it. No authority was given by the company or its directors for any illegitimate use or large expenditure of money. The only resolution of the directors was limited to the employment of counsel and agents for proper purposes; and nearly all the directors have testified that it did not contemplate an expense larger than ten or fifteen thousand dollars, and that they never knew the facts until long afterward. In fact, the president, on his own account, and in aid of his stock speculations, first undertook, through the agent, to procure the passage of the act. Afterward, on being forced by the latter to take the money demanded from the treasury of the company, he directed two subordinate officers, under his complete direction and control, to draw checks for the same. By false entries on the books the facts were kept from the knowledge of directors and stockholders, and were never fully known until the congressional investigation. Now, when the president, having left the company, evades responsibility for his acts by remaining in Europe, and the other actor in the proceedings only returns to attempt to destroy what he mistakenly claims to have created, to punish the innocent stockholders and damage the immense national interests involved would be most illogical and unwise. 3. What has been the effect of controlling in American hands, through the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the commerce of the Pacific Ocean? By the war of the rebellion the American flag was driven from the Atlantic Ocean, and 2,642,648 tons of American shipping reduced to 858,133 tons. To retain the control of the Pacific Ocean in American hands, Presidents Lincoln, Johnson, and Grant, all the Postmasters General, and several Secretaries of the Treasury and Navy, have urged the fostering of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's business; and Congress has passed the two acts of 1865 and 1872. Their recommendations and the debates in Congress would fill volumes. As the result of this national desire and assistance the company placed afloat a fleet of about thirty steamships, built in America at a cost of about $15,000,000; eight of them, the largest and finest wooden side-wheel steamers in the world at that time, subject to the call of the United States in case of war. By them the United States has controlled the Pacific Ocean and the carrying trade with China and Japan, and kept it from foreign hands at a loss to the company of $6,000,000. To keep progress with modern ship-building, the company, since the act of 1872, has commenced the construction of iron screw-steamers, and has built eleven, at a cost of about $7,000,000. These are equal in every respect to the finest English ships, and the Peking and Tokio, of 5,500 tons each, have been inspected by the United States and pronounced fitted for naval use in time of war. Of the $7,000,000, not more than $500,000 was expended in raw ma terial, mainly for coal and iron in the mine; while the balance of $6,500,000 has been paid for American labor in a new branch of industry, competing with that of Europe. Ship-yards, rolling mills, forges, founderies, and heavy machinery have been established and capital invested so that iron-ship-building may be maintained as an American industry, not only for the entire reconstruction of the Pacific Mail Company's fleet, but for building ships for plac ing again, whenever the time shall come, the American flag on the Atlantic Ocean and other waters. All this has been done by reason of the contract of 1866 with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and of the new contract of 1872, at a rate of compensation for mail-service of $2.95 per mile; while the French and English governments, in their existing contracts with their oriental lines, pay respectively $4.48 and $3.20 per mile. 4. What will be the effect of canceling the contract of 1872, and destroying the credit of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company? (1.) The blow at the credit of the company will be almost fatal. In November last its shares sold at above 50, while now they sell at less than 35, and will go lower if hostile action is taken by Congress. Is it wise or just to inflict a loss of from three to five millions of dollars upon innocent stockholders, in the interest of stock-speculators? (2.) It will leave the company with many ships on its hands not adapted for any other use. The new iron ships are built for fleet mailservice, in order to comply with the contracts with the United States. It will be doubtful whether the Peking, and the Tokio, and the three ships now building, can go into service under the American flag. At all events no other new ships will be built by the company, and as the line to China and Japan cannot be maintained without replacing the wooden ships by iron propellers, that line may have to be gradually withdrawn, and surrendered, like all previous American lines, to foreign ship-owners and ship-builders. (3.) It will deliver maritime supremacy on the Pacific Ocean, now established in American hands at six millions loss to this company, and with but moderate assistance from the Government, completely into English hands. A company has already been formed for the avowed purpose of running English ships from San Francisco to China and Japan. Its agents and its influence have been, and now are, at work fomenting hostility and prejudice against the Pacific Mail Company, and endeavoring to secure the cancellation of the contract of 1872. By reason of the rebellion American ships were driven from the Atlantic Ocean, and they are now kept therefrom by one hundred and seventy large foreign-built iron steamships running to American ports, worth one hundred and forty millions of dollars, employing one hundred and seventy-five millions of capital, and earning eighty millions annually, mainly paid by Americans but expended abroad. Of course the influence of this enormous capital will be exerted in driving from the Pacific Ocean the only complete American steamship line running to foreign ports. But can the American people and the American Congress afford to allow this to be done on account of any facts yet made to appear? (4.) It will stop American iron-ship-building, just now reviving, and destroy the capital which has provided this result. If American pride and American capital will not intervene to prevent English steamships from driving American ships from the Pacific Ocean, no American line to any foreign ports can be established or maintained. The Pennsylvania line will be destroyed by unfair competition, and there will be no demand for iron steamships, although it is now established that, spite of disadvantages, ships can be built in America as good and as cheap as any on the Clyde. The only ships now on the stocks in America for the foreign trade are the three under construction for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, while in England last year ships were built of the value of eighty-five million dollars. Can America afford to give up a reviving industry, the expenditures in which are entirely for American labor? (5.) It will deprive the United States in time of war of a fleet of vessels adapted for naval purposes, and already in control of the Pacific Ocean. By the act of 1872 the Pacific mail steamships are to be so constructed as to be suitable for naval uses, and to be subject to be taken by the Government in time of war. On all other waters American ships are now few and insignificant. On the Pacific Ocean American ships have complete ascendency. Shall they be withdrawn, and the United States in case of foreign war find itself on the Pacific, as on the Atlantic during the late rebellion, in the condition narrated by an English statesman in the House of Commons? "We know, too, what was done in the Trent affair; we know how ten thousand men were sent out to Canada by the Cunard line of steamers and other vessels at almost a day's notice." And this Cunard line was at that very time employed by our Govern ment to carry the United States mails! The undersigned desires to submit further facts and arguments against the injury to private and public interests to be inflicted by illjudged congressional action in canceling the Pacific Mail contract of 1872. No harm can possibly result from delaying action at this session. If bribery or corruption has been or can be proved, it should be punished, if possible; but canceling the contract punishes no guilty person. It only punishes the innocent at the request and instigation of the guilty, and injures great national interests for insufficient reasons. The undersigned, in behalf of himself and his workmen, earnestly prays that the ships which he is proud of having built in American ship-yards, of American material, and with American labor, may not, by the hasty action of Congress, be driven from under the American flag. Very respectfully, CHESTER, PA., February 10, 1875. JOHN ROACH. 1 2d Session. No. 79. TEXAS AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY. JOINT RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, INSTRUCTING Their Senators and requesting their Representatives in Congress in regard to the Texas and Pacific Railroad Company. FEBRUARY 15, 1875.-Referred to the Committee on the Pacific Railroad and ordered to be printed. Whereas, completion of railroad construction connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, over the southwestern portion of the United States, will greatly shorten distance and cheapen carriage between the ports of the two oceans, and, in the thorough exemption from snow-blockades or other obstructions, afford a line of transportation at all times for the commercial, postal, and military demands of the nation, enabling prompt concentra tion of armies and their supplies, whenever and wherever required for the country's safety or defense, and directly promoting public economy and advantage in solving Indian difficulties on our frontier, by carrying forward a self-sustaining column of emigration for development of vast sources of wealth in its course; and Whereas there is now pending before the national Congress a measure proposing aid to the Texas and Pacific Railway Company in the form of guarantee by the United States five per cent. annual coin interest, not the principal, of forty-year bonds, to be issued by said company to the extent of $35,000 per mile of construction, under conditions, assuming security to the Government and success to the enterprise; and Whereas the General Government has heretofore afforded the national credit to a like enterprise, and often extended aid in large and valuable subsidies of the public domain, for similar improvements in other sections of the nation; and impartiality in benefits is essential to good government: Therefore, Resolved by the general assembly of the State of Tennessee, That our Senators in Congress are instructed and our Representatives requested to support, with their utmost ability, the adoption of the above-indicated measure, proposing guarantee by the General Government of the interest on bonds of the Texas and Pacific and Atlantic and Pacific Railway Companies. |