Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1901 — THE SUBSIDY BILL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SUBSIDY BILL.

SENATOR FRYE EXPLAINS BENEFITS OF THE MEASURE. , Shows Very Clearly that the Building Up of American Shipping Will Be of Direct Advantage to All the People of the United States. Washington correspondence: Senator Frye is concededly the best posted man in the Senate on maritime subjects, as it is to them, probably more than to any other national questions, that he has devoted more of his attention during his more than a quarter of a century in Congress. Being chairman of the Committee on Commerce of the Senate these questions are constantly forcing themselves upon his attention in the most practical of ways, and it is his decision that is often decisive for or against a measure affecting these subjects. Not alone is he remarkably well versed in all of the details that appertain to our shipping upon the ocean, in the foreign trade, but he is quite as well posted concerning our vast coastwise and inland commerce. During each session of Congress, moreover, he is obliged to familiarize himself with the details of the commerce of each river and harbor of the country, in order to Intelligently decide upon items in the river and harbor Improvement bill. It is not too much to say, in these circumstances, that Senator Frye is a veritable human commercial and maritime encyclopedia. It is this, of course, that gives great weight to his expressions, and the greatest weight to his opinions. It is seldom, if ever, that he is found lacking in any of the myriad details affecting the vast commercial and maritime interests for which his position requires that he shall take the lead in legislating. And it is not remarkable, in these particular matters, that his colleagues in the Senate should repose the most implicit confidence in his judgment, and generally accept his Judgment as their own. When to this may be added the remarkable fact that he has never yet reported a bill favorably from his Commerce Committee to the Senate that has not been passed by that body, some Idea of the extent of his influence among his colleagues may be obtained. So, it was, that when Senator Frye rose to speak in the Senate, a day or two after the short session began, on the shipping bill that has been before the country, because it has been before Congress for the last three years, his colleagues gave the closest attention to all that he said. The extent of the details of the subject may be understood when it is known that the Senator consumed several hours on two successive days to say all that he wished to say concerning the recent history leading up to the shipping Jblll, and in making plain every detail of the measure. The memory of no man can go back to a time when Senator Frye delivered a more thorough, analytical, exhaustive, detailed and convincing speech on the great subject of our merchant marine than in his last great effort in the Senate.

That the people of the country are still reading and digesting hlfe speech is shown conclusively in the demands upon him for copies of it. Certain Senators and representatives have asked for several hundred copies, each, in order to place them in the hands of their influential constituents, and it is safe to say that the general knowledge the country over regarding our maritime conditions and needs will be infinitely more widespread and accurate as a result of the delivery of that speech than it has ever- been before. Feeling that the readers of these letters would like to have a word or two from the Senator on the subject of his shipping bill, I sought him out, and asked him what he could say, in a condensed form, that could be readily grasped and understood by the busy millions. To this he replied as follows: “The people will be for or against the bill, as their in|nds are satisfied upon two cardinal points, namely (1) Will it cheapen the cost of carrying our exports, and (2) Will It be a benefit to the whole nation. On the first point, lam convinced that from the very start American ships will be compelled to carry our foreign commerce more cheaply than foreign ships do now, to wrest from them any of that business. The benefit of this goes right back to the producers, whose products are worth more or less as the cost of transportation to the consumer is cheap or dear. We may be sure, then, that the producers, and by this I mean- the farmers, the men employed in the mills, in the mines and in the factories, will all receive a direct personal benefit But the advent of American ships will be sure to precipitate a war of freight rates with the foreign ships that now do our carrying, and here it is that I feel sure there will be a reduction, for years, of fully 25 per cent in our present freight rates—a reduction that will mean a saving of fully $50,000,000 a year to the American people in this one item alone. This makes the expenditure of $0,000,000 as an aid to our ships a mere bagatelle by comparison. “As to the second point: Our foreign commerce, now worth two and a half billions of dollars a year, is a nursery for seamen employed on foreign ships, the cost of which latter, and the cost of their maintenance, is paid for by the American people. Both these ships and these men may be used against the United States, if this country becomes Involved with the nations whose flags they fly. To the extent that we, by our neglect, enable our rivals to build their ships and to run them at our expense, we deprive our own people of the employment in the shipyards and on board the ships that would be of the greatest Bld to the nation whenever It might be

called upon for ships and for men. We now pay to foreigners $175,000,000 each year, and to that extent we enrich and strengthen them, while we to the same extent impoverish and weaken ourselves. If this does not prove that the building up of American ships will be a direct benefit to all of the people of the United States, in strengthening them where they are weak, as a nation, and in affording additional employment to all of the people by keeping the vast sum of $175,000,000 a year in the United States that is now sent abroad to pay foreigners for doing our carrying each year, then the argument is with the other side.” I asked the Senator to say why it Is necessary for the government to aid its ships, and to this he briefly replied: “Because they wil,’ have to compete with ships that receive huge subsidies and bounties from their governments, because the competing foreign ships are built more cheaply than are American ships, and because foreign ships cost less to run than do American ships. These are advantages that foreign ships now possess over our own. But a few years of operation under this bill will enable us to build ships as cheaply and to run them as cheaply as our rivals do, but until this is accomplished, national safety and sound economics justify the annual expenditure of $9,000,000 in order to thereby save $50,000,000 in ocean freight rates on our exports and imports.” There is much food for serious reflection in the foregoing statements—-state-ments, by the way, that come from the very highest source of reliable information in the United States, and from a man whose whole public career has shown him to be a man of fearless courage, of commanding ability and of unimpeachable integrity. It was for these possessions that he was elevated by his colleagues to the position of president pro tempore of the Senate, a position that makes him, now, acting 1 ice President of the United States. A Good Thing to Remember. The Secretary of Agriculture in his annual report draws attention to the fact that our total sales of domestic farm products to foreign countries during the four fiscal years 1897-1900 aggregated the enormous sum of $3,186,000,00(1, or close to $800,000,000 in excess of the export value for the preceding four-year period. In other words, we received on an average during 1897-1900 for products of domestic agriculture marketed abroad nearly $200,000,000 a year above the annual amount paid us for such products during 1893-1896. This is all very gratifying, as it shows how dependent the nations of the Eastern Hemisphere are upon the United States for bread and meat. These markets will always take our food purplus at a price, but it will be a price that we cannot control. After all, the best market for American foodstuffs is right here in America. The more we consume here the less will be left for export, and the less left for export, the greater will be prices paid for the exported surplus. The main thing in agriculture, as in manufacturing, is the big home market; and the way to make the home market take the largest possible share of what the farmer has to sell and pay a good price for it is to keep the largest possible percentage of our population at work in the mills and factories. The American farmer understands this better thai. he used to. Protectionists have been preaching to him for forty years and the vote cast in the farming districts at the last election shows that the idea has at last foiind permanent lodgmett. It is a good thing to remembel.

The Real Motive. It is characteristic of a certain class of writers to assume that the purpose of protectionists is to injure the people of other nations. Thus we find an Englishman alluding to the proposal to pass a ship subsidy bill as a piece of “legislation designed to cripple England on the sea.” That may be the effect of such a measure if enacted, but it is hardly ftlr to say that its purpose is to “cripple England.” It is Just possible the real motive for passing such a measure might be the desire to strengthen the United States on the sea and to save money by engaging American people in a pursuit which is supposed to be profitable. British critics ought not to talk of efforts such as this as though they thought that Great Britain bad been marked out by Providence monopolize the world’s carrying trifle, and that to attempt to break in was little short of a crime.— San Francisco Chronicle. Darn of tbe Twentieth C ntury.

How the Miners Voted. The throe counties of Pennsylvania which were the arena of the anthracite coal strike gave large majorities for McKinley at the late election. Cue county, which gave 1,600 Democratic majority two years ago, gave McKinley nearly as large a majority this year.— Minneapolis Journal.