Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1890 — THEY KNOW A GOOD THING. [ARTICLE]

THEY KNOW A GOOD THING.

Illustrated London News. We observp that the American Senate has passed the shipping bounties bills. We may thus expect to see, in the course of a few years, a revolution in the American mercantile marine, and its former depressed condition will soon be a thing to be wondered at. Hundreds of vessels will promptly avail themselves of the liberal scale of bounties and subsidies provided in the bills, and one of the most serious obstacles to a thriving export trade will be thus removed. Apart from every other consideration it will be a “crowning glory” for the present administration to have revived and put on its legs a flagging American industry, to have provided new and remunerative employment for thousands of citizens and to have added enormously to the commercial prosperity of the country by the creation of an extensive export trade. There will be a revival of the American ship-building industry , consequent on the application of the principle of protection to the only trade in the country to which it has been steadfastly denied for many years. European nations have built up their mercantile marine by an extensive system of bounties and subsidies, and it will soon be shown that the United States can also create a powerful merchant marine by the application of similar methods. When the American flag flics on every sea, as it shortly will do, it will be but justice to admit that the Republican party has rendered good service to the nation in combating and vanquishing the popular prejudice against subsidies.