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beside, I believe. Within thirty miles of my own residence is a town of only ten thousand people, which is the largest wooden ship-building place on the globe to-day. I know some little of that subject; and while the days of wooden-ships are by no means over, while they will be a great and needful auxiliary in the commence of the world, yet it is manifest and is proven that the great highways of international commerce, such as the North Atlantic, the West India seas, the route from San Francisco to Asia, that from San Francisco to Melborne, and in various and sundry and divers other directions, will be occupied, and occupied almost to the exclusion of sailing-vessels, by the ocean steamers. The United States can take a great part in that race; they can take a great part in it just whenever they make up their mind that the instrumentality by which England conquered is the one one which we must use; they can take it whenever they make up their minds that a mercantile marine and naval establishment must grow and go together hand in hand, and that the Congress of the United States is derelict in its duty if it passes another naval appropriation bill without accompanying it in some form with some wise and forecasting provision looking also to the upbuilding of the American merchant marine."

Two years previous to the discussion described above, Mr. Blaine put himself very decisively on

record in an extended speech in the Senate favoring a reduction of the Navy and encouraging American shipping. He had presented two amendments, one looking to a reduction in the number of Navy officers to the lowest point consistent with the authorized size of the Navy, and also to the reduction of the number of our navy yards, provided that the efficiency of the naval establishment of the country should not thereby be impaired. The other amendment provided that appointments to the rank of midshipman, from graduates of the United States Naval Academy, should be made only as vacancies occurred, and only on the basis of their standing at graduation.

The speech reviewed exhaustively the facts concerning our navy and navy yards as then existing, comparing them with the establishments of other great naval powers, and showing the disadvantage against our methods. Having shown the good ground presumably existing in favor of retrenchment in the navy, Mr. Blaine addressed himself to its allied topic, the development of the American mercantile marine. He said:

"Three-fourths, I do not know but I may overstate it, but certainly one-half the report of the Secretary of the Navy is devoted to the commerce of the country, and a very able report it is. It does him honor. I certainly am not out of order in discussing on the naval bill that to which the head of the department himself devotes so large

a portion of his report. I say again, that what may be saved out of the naval appropriation will do that which I have already adverted to for American commerce. We do not show any of this, can I call it stinginess, in any other department. We have given 200,000,000 acres of public land to railroads ; we have now given $60,000,000 in money; and taking the value of those lands and the value of that money, and adding them together, it is safe to say that we have endowed railroads in this country with $500,000,000.

legislation since 1871.

"From 1846 to 1871 the Congress of the United States passed ninety-one acts for promoting the building of railroads. There has not been much There has been a reaction against the policy, but from 1846 to 1871, I repeat, a period of twenty-five years, the Congress of the United States passed ninety-one different acts, and endowed the railroad system of this country with $500,000,000 of money, and that $500,000,000 of money produced more than $5,000,000,000 of money in this country. My judgment is that the Congress of the United States in everything they did in that respect did wisely. They cheapened freights. Clinton's ditch, as it used to be called, was sneered at when it was an experiment, but the minute the water was let into it it reduced the freights that had been $100 from Buffalo to New York down to $7 a ton;

and it is not an exaggeration to say that at that day, before railroads were among us, the water that was let in from Lake Erie to that canal added $100,000,000 to the value of the farms west of it.

"As individuals, cities, towns, counties, states, a nation, we have exerted ourselves to the utmost point of enterpise and vigor to build up railroads. We have a system that outruns all the world, and with great trunk lines threading the continent, north, south, east and west, in every direction. The very moment we reach the ocean limit, we seem to think we have done our duty, and that when we have got transportation to that point it no longer interests us, and we can safely give that over to the foreigner. Why, from Chicago to Liverpool is one direct line. I wonder how it would sound if Mr. Vanderbilt, who is running a line of steamships manned by foreign men, commanded by foreign officers, built in foreign yards, whose money earnings go entirely outside of this country, were to apply that to the New York Central Railroad, and select all the brakemen and switchmen and conductors and tenders and officers on the Central Railroad from foreigners; to put on it locomotives that are all made in England; to let all its earnings be exported. Such a policy would not be one particle more detrimental and destructive to the interests of this country than for us when that Central Railroad had touched salt water with all the countless pro

ducts of the fertile West to give up all the profits of participation in the transportation of them beyond. From Chicago to Liverpool is a route of four thousand miles. We operate one thousand miles of it and give three thousand miles to the foreigner.

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"Mr. President, I will state my views on this subject, and I shall take the privilege of bringing the Senate to some vote that will test its sense on that question. My idea is that the Government of the United States should give to any man or company of men aid from the treasury of the United States if he or they shall establish and maintain a line of steamships to any foreign port, or I might limit it to European, South American, and Asiatic ports. I would invite competition from San Francisco, from Portland, Oregon, from Galveston, from New Orleans, from Mobile, from Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Norfolk, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Portland, and everywhere. I would let all come in who can sustain it. The touchstone is what will be sustained by the trade, and that you can safely leave to the instinct and to the knowledge of American commercial men."

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