Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1907 — URGES SHIP SUBSIDY. [ARTICLE]

URGES SHIP SUBSIDY.

President Says Federal Aid ot Steamer* I* Xeeded. “It would surely be discreditable for us to surrender to our commercial rivals the great commerce of the Orient, the great commerce we should have with South America, and even our own communication with Hawaii and the Philippines,” declared President Roosevelt in a special message sent to Congress urging the passage of a ship subsidy bill. In his message the President says: “The urgent need of our country making an effort to do something like its share of its own carrying trade on the ocean has been called to our attention in striking fashion by the experiences of Secretary Root on his recent South American -tour. -The".great continent to the south of us, which should be knit to us by the “closest commercial ties, is hardly in direct commercial communication with us at all, its commercial relations being almost exclusively With gtiropC. Iu the year ending June ,‘>o. 1905. there entered the port of Rio ,do Janeiro over 3,(XX) steamers and sailing vessels from Europe. but from the United States uo steamers and only seven sailing vessels, 'two of which were in distress.” One prime reason for this condition, the President says, is that business on the sea is done not in a world of natural competition hut of subsidized competition. State aid to steamship lines, he says, is as much a part of the commercial system of the country as State employment of 'consuls to promote business, aud adds: “Our commercial competitors in Europe pay in the aggregate some twenty-five millions a year to their steamship lines. Great Britain paying nearly seven millions. Japan pays between three -and four millions. By the proposed legislation the United States will pay relatively less than any one of our competitors pays "Three years ago the trans-Mississippi congress formally set forth as axiomatic the statement HUT every ghtp T 9 tt missionary of trade, that steamship lines work for their own countries just as rp.ilroad lines work for their terminal joints and that it is as absurd for the United States to depend upon foreign ships to distribute its product as it would be for a department store to depend upon wagons of a competing house to deliver its goods. "Moreover, it must be remembered that American ships do not have to contend merely against the subsidization of their foieign competitors. The higher wages and the greater cost of maintenance of American officers and crews make it almost impossible for our people who do business on the ocean to compete on equal terms with foreign ships.” The President says the proposed law is not experimental, but is based on the experiences of other countries, and ia conclusion expresses a hope for the enactment of some law like the bill at present pending in Congress.