In other cases it works in this way: The largest and richest importing house in Boston, with one exception, who do an extensive business in South America, were compelled to change their flag. It was not simply a question of saving their vessels, it was a question of continuing their business, or abandoning it to Englishmen or any others who should see fit to crowd them out during a state of war. This firm put their vessels under a foreign flag, and to-day they sail under that flag, though owned by American citizens.

Now, I wish to meet this question in a plain, common sense business like way. If it is a bounty, and you consider that a rebate of the taxes can come under that form, I shall agree with these gentlemen here and try to suggest something else. But it does not seem to me so. I hope we shall not be considered unpatriotic in advocating free ships, as we have done. I believe it is the truest patriotism to take that course which elevates your country the most. I say to-day that the American people can afford to inaugurate those courses and customs in business which recognize the common brotherhood of man, and trust to them. I think, sir, that Congress would do well when they make laws to have a little more confidence in the industry, perseverance and brains of the American people.

On motion of Mr. SHRYOCK, of St. Louis, the Board took a recess of one hour.

AFTERNOON SESSION.

The Board re-assembled at two o'clock, and the discussion on the resolutions in reference to the shipping interest was resumed.

Mr. ATKINSON, of Boston: Mr. President and Gentlemen.— The controversy in regard to the shipping question has so recently engaged the attention of the Boston Board of Trade, that I can scarcely speak upon it without repeating what lies so clearly in my mind as having been spoken at that time; but some new points have been presented since this debate was opened. My friend from Philadelphia, (Mr. WINSOR,) gave up, as it seemed to me, the whole principle upon which the opposition to our resolution is based, when he said that this was a part of the great general question of protection and free trade, and that protection to one interest destroyed the other. That is a most substantial truth. Protection to iron and lumber and copper has destroyed ship building. Moreover if a ship comes into Boston. harbor with a cargo intended for our consumption, that cargo,

although it is of foreign origin, is as much the production of American labor as if it had been produced upon our own soil by the labor of our own men, for it is but the result of an exchange of the products which were the result of American labor. But, suppose that in addition to that cargo, intended for our use and comfort, that ship (as has happened lately in Boston) brought in a suit of copper, and her owners desired to place her in dock in East Boston, take the new suit out of her hold and put it upon the bottom of the vessel, and take the old copper off and put it into the hold, how does the law stand? In the case to which I refer, the law was decided to stand thus: That the owners must pay a duty upon the new copper when taken out of the hold, and pay a duty upon the old copper when taken off the bottom of the ship. So that ship sailed away to our friends in St. John, who have a little more common sense in the making of their laws than that, and our friends of New Brunswick were employed to repair and refit that vessel. Can we wonder at the destruction of American trade, when we meet such a hard fact as that which cannot be gainsaid.

But, sir, the American ownership of ships has not ceased to the extent that has been represented. The statistics which have been paraded before us in regard to the proportion of American ships to foreign ships, and the cargoes brought by them respectively, are as fallacious and untrue as statistics are apt to be. No one knows that better than one who has compiled so many statistics as I have. Sir, one of the largest fleets of ships owned by any one man in the city of Boston, an immense fleet of sailing vessels, is now sailed under the flag of a little petty State in South America. And why, sir? The owner of those ships when the war came on transferred them to his partner, the member of the house in a foreign country, and put them under the flag of that country; but that country got into a war with Spain and they were then transferred to the German flag; Germany got into a little trouble, and the attempt was made to transfer them to the Sandwich Island flag, but that did not stick, and now, the next most petty nation that the owner could find has been selected as having the greatest power to protect American property upon the sea! I am ashamed to make such a humiliating confession in the presence of our friends from Canada, of the position in which we stand it is mortifying and humiliating to the last degrée.

Now, sir, what is the nostrum proposed to us as a remedy? It is asked that a bounty shall be given of so much a ton on American built ships, and that is asked by a gentleman, (Mr. WETHERILL,) and his coadjutors, who admit, at the same time, that an English vessel

can be sailed for seven hundred dollars a month, while a Yankee vessel costs twelve hundred dollars. Suppose he built his ship and got his bounty, what would he do with her? Put her under the English flag and sail her at seven hundred dollars a month, and then go to work and build another ship and get his bounty on that and so on. That is the way that will work.

Then they come along and want a subsidy, a subsidy for carrying the mails, and we are asked to go for a subsidy. I must say that I am astonished that the demand should come from that side of the house, that we should subsidize a steamer to carry the foreign mail? What would come with that foreign mail? A flood of foreign luxuries would be poured upon us, and the soil of the United States would be drained of its manurial elements, carried off in the form of wheat, corn, cotton, "hog and hominy;" our land would be impoverished, our gold would be carried away from us, and we should have inflicted upon us all the evils that the utmost imagination of Mr. CAREY and Mr. GREELEY can conceive of. I should think these gentlemen would rather ask Congress to subsidize the Cunard steamers to stay away from our shores, and not flood us with abominations such as iron, steel, lumber, lead, copper and other foreign luxuries.

Now, sir, Great Britain invites the freest commerce, and therefore she subsidizes her lines of steamers in order to induce them to carry her mails, but she puts them under hard conditions. Within a few years the Cunard line has partially given up these subsidies, because they find the requirements of the English Government for war purposes so onerous that they prefer to give up the subsidies rather than be subjected to them. Out of the great fleet of one hundred and thirty odd steamers that sail in and out of the harbor of New York, not one of them under the flag of our country, there are only ten or twelve that have any subsidy at all; and yet there are millions of pounds sterling now being spent in Great Britain in the construction of still more ocean steamers. The profits of steamship transportation never were so great as they are to-day, and yet we are barred out, except by indirection, from all share in them. Except we have the tonnage owned by us registered under the flag of Great Britain, or some petty flag like that of Gautemala, we may have no share in that great business. And yet, sir, it has been well said that navigation and naval power are the children, not the parents, the effect, not the cause, of commerce, and it is impossible to consider this shipping question without going down to the fundamental question of free trade as our friend here has so well said.

Again, sir, the so-called example of our patriotic friends in Philadelphia in building four large steamers, is set before us as a good example for us to follow. I should say, if our friends in Philadelphia are unwise enough to place their twelve hundred thousand dollars of capital, which is but a measure of the sweat and labor of the workmen in the mines, the iron works, the fields and the forests of Pennsylvania, gathered up by the hard toil of her citizens, but gathered in by only a few, under the force of most unjust laws, which deprive labor of that fair and equitable share which is its due, I say, if our friends in Philadelphia are unwise enough to waste this money in the construction of steamers which they admit cannot be run unless the rest of us are taxed again, in order that they may have a bounty to repay them for their waste, their course should serve as a warning, rather than an example. I say the example of Boston is a better one than that of Philadelphia, for our most skilful shipbuilder is now upon the Clyde, superintending the building of two large iron steamers to be owned by Boston capital, and run in competition with all others on an even keel, but not under our flag. We ask the protection of our flag to our property on land or sea if honestly obtained and paid for, and we have a right to demand it. But under the plea of protection we are denied our rights, and this plea is a part of the controversy between the advocates of that form of protection advocated by our friends from Pennsylvania, which inflicts privation; and the great principle of liberty which lies at the foundation of the argument for free trade.

But let me state one or two more facts and then I have done. The example of Great Britain has been cited to us in regard to the subsidies. I say, sir, that the example of Great Britain is a good example for us to follow in some respects, if not in that. In 1824, when Mr. HUSKISSON began his crusade against the Navigation Acts, the tonnage of Great Britain was only two and one-half millions. The Navigation Acts were modified as to foreign commerce, and the commerce of Great Britain began to increase. In 1848, her tonnage had grown to four millions. In 1849, the Navigation Acts, as to foreign voyages, were entirely repealed, and in 1867, the tonnage of Great Britain amounted to seven and a quarter millions. What it is now I know not, but this I know, that with all navigation acts repealed, she cannot find the labor to build ships fast enough; and were we once to give ships of foreign construction the protection of our flag, the demand would be so great, as has been suggested by some of our friends from Cincinnati, that the wages of labor would rise and rise in her ship yards until all disparity between England and this country in that respect would cease, and we should

have our fair share of the building and running of ships. If we have not had it, it is not because of the pauperism of Great Britain, but because there was no benefit to be derived from it. There is no possibility of commerce between nations, in ships or anything else, unless both parties gain by the transaction, and our tariff having cut off the opportunity for gain, our commerce languishes.

There is but one other thing which I wish to say, and that touches the interest of our Western friends. We have been criticized here for not taking a broad view in regard to internal improvements. I claim that we take the broadest view. Do you wish to enlarge the Erie Canal? Admit steel plates free of duty, and substitute for your clumsy wooden boats, which fill up your canal, steel steamboats, of light draught, and you will then enlarge the Erie Canal at no cost to any one. Do you want to carry your freight over the St. Clair flats easily and readily, with only seven feet draught? Call in a steel steamer of a thousand tons burthen, which only draws seven feet against the nine or ten of a wooden vessel. Let us do this, and nobody need be taxed to pay the expense of deepening the channel over the St. Clair flats. That is our view of the internal improvement question. These examples that I have stated in regard to these two points are almost of universal application, and I know my friend from St. Louis, (Mr. SHRYOCK,) will be able to see how these examples can be applied to other vessels on the Western waters, and how our lines of internal improvement can be vastly aided, not by subsidies for the removal of natural obstacles, but by the removal of legal obstacles which now prevent us from using the best tools. We want steel rails, steel plates, steel steamers without limit, and when our supply is not barred by the Custom House, the cost of transportation will be vastly reduced.

Mr. SHRYOCK, of St. Louis: Mr. President. I am very much gratified that the National Board of Trade has continued upon its calendar the subject of American shipping, and the chief branch of the subject, ship building. I do not believe the time of this Board can be employed more profitably than in the discussion of plans needful to be adopted to bring the latter branch of the subject before the Congress of the United States. I believe our greatest want at this day is sea and river craft; vessels of model and material to answer the demands of our commerce, not only on the ocean but upon the lakes and rivers. In order that we may hold an even hand with the maritime powers of the world, our whole system of building war vessels must be changed in material used in their construction, and the models should be after the most approved plans of naval