Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1910 — (IO FLAG ON THE SEA [ARTICLE]

(IO FLAG ON THE SEA

High Protection Cause of Decline of Shipping. SHIP SUBSIDY FALLACY. Where British Builders Havs the Advantage of Uncle Sam—No Money In American Bottome— Business Throttled by Tariffs. It is not easy to have patience with some of the reasons that are given for subsidizing American ships. We are told that “it is a national disgrace that an American admiral should sail around the world, as Sperry said he did, without once seeing the American flag on a merchant ship.” It may be so, but who are responsible for the disgrace? Those who have built up the high tariff system of the country—these and nobody else. The high tariff has so Increased the price of the things that enter into the .construction and supply of ships that it is impossible for Americans to build them at a profit; hence they are compelled to use foreign ships to carry their imports and exports. The chairman of the shipping and harbo? committee of the New York chamber of commerce* put the latter fact very clearly in a recent utterance. He said-: “I know that no money is to be made in building ships and running them under the present conditions of the commerce of the United States and of labor and of material and of the mode of constructing ships.” Mr. Welding Ring, another member of the chamber, was equally emphatic on that occasion. He said: “I have been shipping forty years, and I know something about it and I know what the conditions are. I don’t believe the government subsidy is ever going to build up our mercantile marine.” Clearly, then, the shipping business does not pay in America. And because it does not pay the proposition is that the taxpayers of the country shall put their hands in their pockets and make it pay. In other words, because protection has ruined the industry there should be more protection.

Let nobody think it an exaggeration to say that protection has ruined American shipbuilding, for Just look back half a century or so. Shipbuilding has flourished with us most when our tariff was lowest, and It has dwindled most when our tariff is highest In 1853 the New York Herald could boast that “it must be a matter of sincere satisfaction to know that in both sailing and steam vessels we have surpassed the whole world.” All this was substantially true then. But those were the days of low tariffs. How is it that England is still mistress of the seas, while this country has no shipping to speak of? Because England has continued the policy of commercial freedom, whereas we have gone further and further on the dreary path of protection. The great development of British shipping dates from the middle of last century, when England repealed her navigation acts and threw open her ports to all nations. We have our barbarous navigation laws still in force, which deny us free ships, and we have the high tariff, which denies us free purchase of the materials with which to build ships. Can we wonder that American labor and capital have forsaken this industry and gone Into more profitable occupations? Indeed, enlightened protectionist writers are candid enough to admit that their policy has ruined American shipping. Thus Professor Robert Ellis Thompson apologiziugly says: “If there were no other reasons for the policy that seeks to reduce foreign commerce to a minimum a sufficient one would be found in its effect upon the human material it employs. Bentham thought the worst possible use that could be made of a man was to hang him; a worse still is to make a common sailor of him.''

And now, since the artificial expansion of our export trade by means of protection has been at the expense of the great shipping industry, what would be the effect upon this export trade of an artificial revival of American shipping supposing it were possible to effect it by subsidies and bounties? The effect would be to diminish our export trade and Indirectly our import trade and consequently to diminish the necessity for shipping. Take our trade with England as an Illustration. We trade largely with England. She is by far our best customer. We export to her shores as much merchandise as we can, and we take from her as little as possible. Thus In 1908 we sent her goods to the value of 1580.663.522. but we took from her only 1100,355,475 worth. How do we get paid for the balance? Largely by the shipping service that Epgland performs for us in carrying goods to and from foreign shores. And supposing that by heavy subsidies we did this carrying for ourselves, what would be the result? That England would take less of our exports because she would not be able to pay for them in shipping services. There is only one way to revive American shipping, and that Is free trade In ships and In the materials of which ships are made. English shipowners know that very well. They know that they can get tbelr materials wherever they can buy them cheapest l«nd that as soon as Americans are free to do the same it will go bard with British shipping. *’Our shipping

trade has only two things to fear,* says Russell Rea. M. P-, in a recent pamphlet—“any departure from,a free trade policy Id England or the abandonment of protection by America and other countries.” What Henry George —an old sailor, by the way—wrote twenty-five years ago is worth quoting today: “From keelson to truck, from the wire in her stays to the brass in her taffrail log. everything that goes to the building, the fitting or the storing of a ship is burdened with heavy taxes. Even should she be repaired abroad she must pay taxes for it on her return borne. Thus has protection strangled the Industry in which with free trade we might still have led the world.” THOMAS SCANLON.