we sent half a million barrels of flour to Rio and we do not now send one.

The Senator from Indiana has dwelt upon the fact that the commerce with that country is increasing, and he quotes from the report in this case. If he had read a little further in this report, he would have found that although the import commerce between this country and Brazil is increasing, our export commerce with her is falling off; that is to say, she is sending her products to us and we are sending none of our products to her.

Mr. MORTON. I ask my friend how that evil can be remedied? If ships come here loaded and have to go back in ballast, that would prove that they could take our products there very cheaply; and if they are not taken there, it is because they are not wanted.

Mr. WEST. Let me answer the Senator by saying that our steamships do not go back in ballast. They go back loaded with every dollar's worth of freight that they can carry; but it is because the English communication enables that cargo to be supplied by sailing vessels more readily than ours that our sailing ships lose that trade. That is the reason of it. The facts are instantly proved here by reference to the figures in this report. We export to Brazil $5,945,307 of merchandise; we import from there $30,560,468, a balance of over twenty-four millions against us. Now, give us this increased facility of communication and you will immediately restore our commerce to its former control of the wants of that country.

The Senator from New Jersey has made a casual allusion (and I am very glad that he did it) to the fact that we cannot make a ship of war out of a mail-carrier. Has it occurred to him that there is such a thing as a naval militia, a class of vessels that you might describe as having legs long enough to run away from everything of superior force, and power enough to match everything else? Why was it that the damage to our commerce occurred during the rebellion? Because the rebels filled the ocean with their fleet privateers, their Alabamas and their Floridas, that the moment they came in contact with our vessels of war met their deserved fate. Now, here is a proposition to put afloat in connection with the China line, in connection with the Brazil line, in connection with a line in the Gulf of Mexico, from fifteen to twenty cruisers that can in a very short time be adapted to the uses of offensive, if not defensive warfare. At very short notice we can embark upon the seas our privateers, as it were, that can ravage the commerce of any nation with which we may come in contact, as ours was unfortunately ravaged by the rebel cruisers.

I would say and as furnishing a contrast, I ask that what I send to the Chair be read, announcing my intention to offer it at the proper time.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

That upon all imported lumber, timber, hemp, manila, composition metal, and upon iron rods, bars, and bolts, and other articles entering into the construction of vessels, which may be used and wrought up in the construction of steam or sail vessels built in the United States, whether iron, wooden, or composite vessels, to be used in trade between the United States and foreign countries exclusively, whether for the hull, rigging, equipment, or machinery of such vessels, including such portions as may be prepared in sections, there shall be allowed and paid by the Secretary of the Treasury, under such regulations as he may prescribe, a drawback equal to the duties which may have been paid on such material: Provided, That where American material is used in the construction of such vessels there shall be allowed and paid as aforesaid an amount equivalent to the duties imposed on similar material and articles of foreign manufacture when imported.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Mr. President, the general subject on which the Senate has been engaged for the last two or three days is so intensely interesting to my State that I should feel myself remiss in my duty to its interests if I were not to say a word or so before the subject shall pass from the Senate.

It is anomalous and I think unfortunate that so large a question as the subject of commerce in its extended meaning should be made the subject of consideration upon a postal service bill. It leads to infinite difficulties in every way, and to great misapprehension as to what

we mean.

In listening to this debate I have heard one general statement, that the commerce of the country is depressed. Now, Mr. President, nothing is more untrue than that in one sense. Commerce, in the general acceptation of the term as meaning trade, is not depressed. The honorable Senator from Connecticut has told you that it is in amount over a billion dollars, and perhaps has reached an amount never reached before in the history of the country. If we are striving at that, we have attained it. That is not the embarrassment at all. So to talk of commerce in that sense is a thorough misapprehension, thoroughly to mislead, thoroughly to misconceive the whole thing we are driving at. We cannot afford to subsidize lines of steamships in an interest which is superabounding now, unless it is peculiar in its character.

Now, take the case of the Asiatic steamship line. That may be an exception to the general tone of the remark I am making. That enters a new field, I agree. There we are attempting to open a new trade with a new people, opening a trade with the East which has been sought by all civilized nations for centuries. That may be equally true also, and I have been very much inclined to think it was true, (shaken only, I confess, by the remarks of the honorable Senator from Connecticut to some

Mr. JOHNSTON. I should like the advocates of subsidies to answer one question. If we in the United States cannot inanufacture goods as cheap as they can in England and elsewhere, and if the English can sell to Brazil and other countries cheaper than we can, what good will subsidizing of the line do? Suppose you subsidize the line, we still cannot sell as cheap as England.

on. It is because we do something else besides manufacture, because in the vast fields of western industry we raise agricultural products that we want to supply to these people, and let the manufacturers of England compete with us if they choose.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Mr. President, I desire to submit a few general observations on the subject, and by way of text for what

seeking a new field there, and with this interest added, that one of our own citizens, and one of the most distinguished of our citizens in the ship-building line, has been the pioneer, and has put his fortune into it; and for that reason I was disposed to look kindly upon that.

But, Mr. President, both of those, and all of them together, with this one we are now talking about, are simply in the interest of trade, to increase your trade. This line has no direct reference at all, and only an incidental and remote reference, in any sense whatever, the to the ship-building and maritime interests of the country. You build a line of steamers, thirteen perhaps, I do not know how many; perhaps half a dozen will make this service between New York and Brazil. That is the extent of the shipping interest involved in it; all the rest is trade. It is to stimulate trade. If you do that for New York, why should you not do it for Baltimore, for Philadelphia, and all the ports between here and New Orleans,

and so to Maine, and all in the interest of trade, which by the returns is superabounding to-day?

The chairman of the Committee on Commerce has aptly and forcibly stated what illustrates the whole thing, the difference between sustaining a maritime fleet which is to transport commerce and stimulating trade.

Now, the proposition which I have submitted here, or have caused to be read at the Secretary's desk, with the purpose to offer it by and by, is a proposition from the Committee on Commerce. Itake it from the bill reported from that committee, which is to do what? To restore the shipping interest of this country, to restore the merchant marine, to put upon the ocean a fleet and a merchant service which shall vie with that of England, with the fleet you had when this war begun, for then we divided the carrying trade of the world with England. Young nation as we were, we divided the carrying trade of the world with that first Power in the commerce of the earth. And mark you, sir, never a dollar of subsidy went into the construction of that commercial fleet. It was brought up by the industry and enterprise of the people aided by general causes, which every gentleman who is familiar with that most interesting of all the chapters in American history, the rise and progress of the merchant marine of this country, of course will understand.

Now, Mr. President, I do not feel like look. ing upon any of these propositions with a severe or sour aspect. We want help in our region of country, and I know how easy it is and how natural it would be to misinterpret the position I might take here. I refuse to vote for any of these propositions, and upon my ground you will see how difficult it is for me to vote for any unless it is to explore new regions of trade, to be a pioneer in a new field of commerce, where the ships we hope to build hereafter may go to find new fields. I say you see how difficult it is for me to vote for any of these propositions on this ground, because I say to you that shipping interest which is prostrate in my State, those shipyards that are now desolate, that skilled labor which for half a century heretofore had put upon the seas those grand old ships that car. ried your flag to every port of the world, are waiting to be revived; they are waiting for a change of circumstances, for a change in the current of affairs in the world, or for some favorable legislation here which shall put those industries again in motion.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.

Mr. CHANDLER. I hope the Senator will be allowed to go on by unanimous consent. Mr. MORTON. I hope so, too. I think this amendment is worth all the subsidies.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair hears no objection, and the Senator from Maine will proceed.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Now, what interest have this country in Maine's building ships, you ask? You say we are just as selfish when we want to stimulate the enterprise and industry of ship-builders as are the great companies seeking subsidies, or the great cities to whose trade they contribute. That may be; but, Mr. President, it so turns out that the world has come to believe that a merchant marine is absolutely essential to a nation's prosperity; it is absolutely essential to its defense. It is laid down as a maxim that, more than ships of war, does a nation depend for its defense upon its merchant fleet, its maritime fleet. Everybody can see on a single moment's reflection, without stopping to elaborate the proposition, that that depends on these two facts: if you have a merchant fleet, you have all the elements of a navy, and if you have not a merchant fleet, you may build ships, but you have nobody to sail them. You must have a merchant fleet in order to educate the men to man your men-of-war;

and hence all maritime Powers and all com. mercial Powers, and finally all modern nations who are seeking power, and especially are seeking trade, have found it absolutely necessary to encourage ship building.

Another maxim is equally true, and a selfevident proposition, that you cannot have a merchant fleet unless you build your own ships, and you cannot have an efficient fleet unless you man your own ships. Hence, from the very beginning of this Government we have encouraged a nursery of seamen; that is to say, here were some fishing people who were ac customed to fish in the northern seas, and so we subsidized them, gave them a bounty, and called that a school for sailors, and there we educated the men for the Navy. We built ships, and when this war broke out we had over five million tons of American shipping. Nearly one million tons went directly into the service of the Government and did most efficient service supplying what we lacked, a navy. There is another consideration, and that is the general aspect of this question which appeals to the whole country. It appeals to the West just as strongly as it appeals to the North. If this country is a common interest to us all, then we all have a common interest to see to it that somehow or other our commerce, and our shipping interests, as distinct from our commerce or as connected with our commerce, shall be revived, and that we shall adopt some reasonable policy if, we can, by which it shall be revived.

Another interest obviously is that it gives employment to a great many people. The carrying trade between this country and Eu rope alone is worth $100,000,000. At the breaking out of the war we had sixty-eight per cent. of it; we have now less than twenty-five. Is it practicable to recall that? I think it is, and by the simplest processes. Not a dollar of subsidy. Give us cheap materials and we will do it. Give us the ground on which we can stand, so that we shall have our materials just as cheaply as they can be afforded elsewhere, and then all these ship-yards in the North and throughout the country, and all that skilled labor will be at work at once, and you will find that we shall restore the balance of the shipping interest upon the ocean that now stands against us.

Now, Mr. President, allow me to advert, if I do not weary the Senate, to some general causes. It has been said here to-day that nobody has offered any different proposition than subsidies as a temporary remedy.

Mr. HOWE. If my friend will allow me, I wish to ask him if he recollects what propor tion of the tonnage employed in this European trade is subsidized and what is not?

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. There are thirteen lines of steamers plying between this country and Europe. Four of them are subsidized, and four only.

Mr. COLE. More than that.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. No, sir. Mr. COLE. Does that include those who carry the mails for the postages?

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I mean subsidized by foreign countries. We pay a contribution for carrying the mails. That is an addition, I suppose. And they are not largely

subsidized either. Great Britain has a subsidized line with Brazil. I am not able to tell you the service; I think it is monthly; but that service is for $175,000, and she has no other that I know of with that country, certainly no subsidized line with that country, with whom we are now seeking more intimate relations.

Now, it is said that we must go to subsidies because no better method has been pointed out, and that we must go to subsidies on the idea of reviving our commerce. So far as ship-building is concerned, the people of my State, although they are very largely interested in it, so largely that at the beginning of the war, and for years before that, we were

building in the State of Maine one half of all the foreign sea-going ships, take no interest in this question of subsidies. You may subsidize a series of lines from Portland to New Orleans and that will not revive ship-building in my State.

It is said that we do not show the causes of this decline. The honorable Senator from Nevada says we are in utter ignorance of the causes; we know the fact that we have fallen into this dilapidated condition, into this decadence, but how we came here nobody tells, nonobody seems to know. It is the plainest thing in the world. Whoever has read carefully the history of the navigating interests of this country must know the rise and progress of the navigating interest. It is no marvel to any one who has looked at it, nor was it done by adventitious or factitious causes, but it was by force of general causes. It began as soon as we were a nation, and before-as soon as we achieved our independence. The general state of things in Europe conspired to make it easy for our people to go into the navigating interest. You remember that in 1790, and from that time down to 1815, all European nations were in a state of disorder; they were at war. That was our harvest. We were here a new people, fresh, outside of all these troubles, with no entangling alliances. We went largely into the shipping interest; and now look at the tables and see to what we run up. Up to 1820 we had become a commercial people, young as we were, and from that gen. eral cause. The nations of Europe had sought our ships because they were safe.

Things ran on until a new cause of a general character operated to stimulate this shipping interest, and that was the acquisition of Texas and the Mexican war, and the things growing out of that, and in addition to that the discovery of California and the opening of that vast trade. If you will look at the navigating interests and ship-building interests, you will see they sprang into life amazingly, and that in 1854 and 1856, which I will call the close of that period, we had gone up to almost five million tons of shipping, American tonnage, and it was under the operation of these general causes. Never one dollar came from the Government of any description whatever. The Government did not subsidize us or encourage us in any way. It was all of it the result of the industry, the enterprise, and the skill of the American people acting on their own

account.

There is no more interesting period in the history of the world's commerce than that covering this later period when we put those splendid clipper ships on the water, and our renown was carried on every sea and into every land. England, who had cultivated the art of ship-building, beginning in 1300, found herself eclipsed by this new nation, and found herself an imitator instead of a teacher in the art of naval structure.

Now, is there any great mystery about what has been done? Is there any great doubt about what you may do? Is there any great doubt how all this can be restored? There wait in idleness to day those very yards which have built the ships of which we are speaking; there are the skilled workmen shifting and turning, waiting for a turn in time or waiting for some friendly legislation by the Government, waiting for those vast burdens which have come upon Congress and the nation to pass away, when they hope Congress will turn a kindly look in that direction. If you will give them cheap material, as contemplated by the proposition reported from the Committee on Commerce, not send us to the Committee on Postal Service, but recognize the fact which the Committee on Commerce has recognized, you will find all these industries teeming and at once, and a decade will not pass away again before you will find that we will put the balance on our side without any subsidies whatever.

Mr. President, of course I am only glancing

at this subject in the most general possible way. It is a large field, and a great deal can be said in detail about it. I do not wish to be understood as standing here now as an antagonist to what the Senate may think it desirable to do to stimulate trade in any of these directions. I am willing that my people, if it is thought desirable, shall be put in to stimulate trade in this direction; but while you are doing that, I beg the Senate to consider that here is a great interest which is prostrate, the ship-building interest, and that what you are doing will do them little or no good at all so far as a remedy is concerned. If you would rejoice to see these grand old ships again upon the ocean, you must look to something else besides subsidies. They will not accomplish the object.

Sir, I thought in the beginning that I would not say anything on this subject, and was rather reluctant to do so. I thought I would wait for some other opportunity to arise before I would even venture to address the Senate upon this general interest so dear to our people; but on the whole I have made up my mind today to say this much; and when the Senate shall have voted upon this proposition, if they sustain it, or whether they do or not, before it shall pass from the consideration of the Senate I shall ask a vote upon the amendment I have had read, to see whether on the whole it is not the sense of the Senate that the time has come, that the burdens of the Government have been sufficiently relieved, that at length we can see the clear sky over us, indicating not only that peace has come, but that prosperity is ours, and that we may reach out our hands and do a little something for this in

terest.

Mr. COLE. Mr. President, I apprehend that we are all in search of the truth in reference to these matters, and that we are anxious to get at the best method of promoting the interests of our own country. I think my friend, the honorable Senator from Maine, who last spoke, was perhaps a little too much inclined to look to but one branch of the subject as the means of promoting our commerce. I think the fact may be stated in this way: ships will be built when they are required for commerce. If the necessity for them should be created, or should arise in any way, or should arise from any cause, ships will be built, and the ship-yards will be stimulated and revived.

I think I reason correctly when I say that the opening of these lines of communication between our country and other countries ere. ates a necessity for ship building; in the first place, for the building of the steamships that are to run to and fro; and not only those, but the construction of ships to supply the fuel always necessarily connected with these lines, supply ships; and not only those, but they create a necessity for commercial or regular trading ships. When the people trading in Melbourne or Sydney get information through a line of this kind of what is needed in San Francisco or New York, they will supply it, of course, quicker than anybody else if they have the material; and so you may reverse the proposition if we in New York or Boston or San Francisco ascertain by these speedy and regular lines of communication what is needed in those distant cities, we immediately set about supplying that demand; and that, of course, will create a necessity for ships, and the necessity of course springs up for supplying ships, and they must be supplied by the navy-yards of Maine and other States where they can be constructed. In this way activity in the shipbuilding interest is directly increased. It cannot be otherwise.

I think it pretty clear that these lines of regular communication, for the reasons I have mentioned, promote ship-building. In the first place, they promote communication between the countries, and the ship-building to sustain the resulting commerce must necessarily fol

low. This is too plain to need elaboration. It partakes of the nature of self evident truth. We would not build ships unless we could use them advantageously. We would not build ships in Maine or anywhere else, with all the advantages that could be afforded in the way of a drawback, unless there was use for those ships. Let me illustrate by a very simple example: we send our mails away into the Territories at great expense. Of course to do that creates the necessity for constructing stages or coaches. What follows? Presently population goes there; business springs up; and not only is there a necessity for those vehicles that carry the mails to and fro, but a necessity for other vehicles for use in all the occupations to which wheeled vehicles are applied. The necessity for them is created by the very fact of communication being first opened; and I believe the same rule will apply with reference to the ship-building of this country. I feel certain, reasoning from my own stand point, that the opening of these lines will very much stimulate ship building throughout this whole country.

The statement is made that ship-building must be augmented by drawbacks, &c. Drawbacks from where? Certainly from the Treas. ury. That is far from a cheap method of getting out of the difficulty we are under; and yet I would, if necessary, give them drawbacks upon their materials, but first create the necessity for the ships if you can.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I should like to ask the Senator from California one question. I will not speak of the purchase of ships and their employment in foreign or domestic trade; but he knows enough about trade to answer this question, which is a direct one. I understand that yesterday the Senate voted to increase the subsidy to the China line from California to China. Is there any probability that he would unite with others in the establishment of a new ine to do business such as is done by the line already authorized unless by a similar subsidy on the part of the United States? In other words, is it possible for any company, or any set of American citizens to associate themselves together and do a shipping business between our western coast and China without a subsidy, his company already enjoying a subsidy? Beside that, will not all the commercial business of the western coast between the United States and China be necessarily and inevitably brought into subjection and under the control of the line that he has just advocated the subsidizing of?

Mr. COLE. I will answer the honorable Senator by saying, by no manner of means. This is only like the stage coach that opens communication. It does not interfere with the emigrant wagon, or the freight-wagon, or the farm-wagon; and I say it will be followed, as the opening of a stage line is followed, by the other vehicles and means of communication, and presently by a railroad. So the opening of this line of communication between the United States and China and Japan will be followed by commerce through other channels, by lines of sailing vessels, as is the case; and the trade by sailing vessels has been very much increased, let me state to my honorable friend, since the opening of this line.

It is

not a monopoly, therefore, in any sense of the word. It only encourages and promotes com. munication by other ways. That has been the result always. If I thought it was to stop trade or to interfere with trade, I do not know that it could be defended, but it is for the purpose of promoting trade, which is always encouraged and promoted by speedy, certain, and regular communication between countries.

Mr. SHERMAN. My hope has been that the friends of this amendment would offer it in such a shape that I could vote for it, but as it now stands I certainly cannot do it. The proposition is to give $450,000 for double the service we have already contracted for. I have heard no sufficient reason given for this

very large increase of the subsidy in proportion to the increase of service. I have been desirous in regard to this bill to vote to maintain the two steamship lines we have now in existence, the China line and the Brazil line, and I was disposed to vote for double the subsidy for double service. Beyond that I certainly would not go, and the friends of this proposition, it seems to me, do injustice to it and the circumstances by which we are surrounded when they demand for this company greater than double the amount of subsidy for double the service. Beyond that I am cer tainly not willing to go.

ships when owned by American citizens to be used for the present, for three years under the American flag, one half of the lines between New York and England would be American lines in sixty days. Because we cannot build these iron ships, we refuse to allow them to have an American registry and enter our custom-houses free of duty. As long as this difference of cost between a ship here and in Liverpool is continued, as a matter of course all the ships that ply between this country and Europe will be under the British flag, because our laws forbid them to raise the American flag.

Now, Mr. President, to conclude as I commenced, unless this subsidy can be reduced to what is a reasonable rate, say one half, I certainly shall not vote for it. One point more and I am done. The argument has been made that the vessels now receive less per mile than the China line; but it must be remembered that the vessels on the China line are vessels of four thousand tous burden-they are the largest, certainly, on the Pacific ocean, and I do not know but that they are among the largest in the world-while these vessels are only two thousand tons. We know very well that it costs much more to run a vessel of four thou sand tons than one of two thousand. Consequently the present subsidy is about as large per ton to this Brazilian line as the present subsidy to the China line. The difference in the size of the vessels and the requirements of the law in regard to the China line are much more onerous than they are in regard to the Brazilian line.

Bu, sir, there are other modes of relief that ought to be granted to this company and that have been proposed by the general bill reported from the Committee on Commerce. Perhaps the attention of the Senate has not been very carefully called to the bill now on the Calendar to promote the ship-building and commercial interests of the United States." That bill contains two sections which, in my judgment, if adopted, would be of more service to the commercial interests of the United States than all the subsidies that could possibly be vote!. One is to admit to American registry the vessels that were driven by stress of the war under foreign flags. That ought to have been done years ago, and I think nothing but a feeling of pride about the American flag, and a little gasconade of that kind, prevented us years ago from allowing the ships that were compelled by the war to change their flag during the war to again assume an American registry. That section is contained in the bill. But the section that in my judgment will give the most relief, and would be an imme-proposition of the Senator from Ohio, it is to diate aid to this company, is the fourth section, which provides that foreign-built ships, steamships, iron ships with a tonnage of over two thousand tons, shall be admitted free of duty to American registry. We cannot build these ships now in competition with the English ship-builders, and if that kind of vessels were now admitted free of duty under the American flag, this steamship company could buy them and at once double the service and start this line probably without any increased subsidy. They state that in a paper which I suppose has been submitted by this company to us. They say:

"Iron British steamers can be built much more cheaply than wooden American vessels. Their compound engines use coal more economically. The scale of British wages is thirty per cent. lower. Were we at liberty to use British bottoms, even with our wages we could as a rule have equal carrying capacity at two thirds of the cost, but we must use American bottoms and pay American wages. It becomes, therefore, absolutely necessary that our vessels should get some support from the Government.'

Under these circumstances, when it is admitted we cannot build this class of vessels within twenty or thirty per cent. of the cost in England, why not admit them duty free? Mr. SCOTT. If the Senator will allow

me

Mr. SHERMAN. I have but five minutes. Mr. SCOTT. I only wish to call his atten tion to the fact that one of the largest ship. builders in the United States proposes at this date to take a contract for any iron ship at ten per cent. advance in currency on the British prices for the same.

Mr. SHERMAN. I take the statement made by these persons, and they say there is a difference of thirty per cent. My honorable friend from Delaware a moment ago said he thought it was twenty per cent.; but I take the statement of these people who are coming to Congress for relief. If that kind of relief would enable them to double the service without increased subsidy, why not give it to them? We cannot build these ships now, it is admitted, in competition with English ship-builders. Then why not admit them duty free, raise the American flag upon them, put Amer. ican officers on their decks, and have Amer ican lines instead of British lines? Why, sir, if that bill should pass, authorizing foreign

Mr. SPRAGUE. As I understand the

admit to registry those vessels that were shut out from the circumstances of our war. I should like to ask him if it is his intention to confine them, when they obtain an American registry, to the ocean commerce, or does he intend they shall participate in the coastwise traffic?

Mr. SHERMAN. I would allow the iron steamship vessels only for foreign commerce; but the other vessels driven by the stress of war to assume another flag ought to be allowed to enter both the foreign and domestic commerce, in my judgment. I think it is a gross outrage, because we could not protect those vessels in time of war, that we should now deprive them of the ordinary navigation of our internal and external commerce.

Mr. SPRAGUE. Let me ask the Senator one other question, or perhaps my friend from Maine can give me the information as well or better. I should like to know the number of tons of the coastwise traffic.

Mr. SHERMAN. Eight hundred thousand tons were driven to change their flag during the war.

Mr. SPRAGUE. What quantity of tonnage is now employed in the coast wise traffic?

Mr. SHERMAN. It was stated yesterday that it was twenty-six hundred thousand tons.

Mr. SPRAGUE. All I have to say to the Senator from Ohio is this: that by allowing at the present time eight hundred thousand tons to be employed in the coastwise traffic of this country he would save that eight hundred thousand and destroy about twenty-six hundred thousand. In fact, he would put a curse upon every ton employed in the coastwise traffic, and he must be very careful how he introduces such a firebrand into our coastwise trade in its present weak condition, as I know it to be from having money invested and having friends' money invested in business connected with the coastwise traffic.

Mr. CHANDLER. I desire to state to the Senator from Rhode Island that the bill introduced by the Committee on Commerce does not propose to admit foreign vessels, nationalized or admitted under our flag, to touch the coastwise tariff.

Mr. BAYARD. I was attracted and interested, as I generally am, by the remarks of

the honorable Senator from Maine, [Mr. MORRILL. He gave an exceedingly interesting and, I believe, so far as I know, quite an accurate history of what may be termed the rise and fall of the American ship-building interest; but it seemed to me that he omitted, toward the close of his remarks, the chief feature which to-day controls the question, and that is the great, fundamental change in shipbuilding, arising from the change of material. The era of iron ships has come; it has been here for some ten years or more. The era of wooden ships, for the general uses of commerce, may be considered a thing of the past. Therefore, when that honorable Senator gave his exceedingly intelligent and accurate description of the decay and the neglect of the ship-building interest in America, he omitted the most important feature, which is the great change, the revolution brought about by the change of material to irou-ship building.

It so happens that the community represented by me in part on this floor is deeply interested in the building of iron ships, has been successfully employed, so far as the excessive burdens of our tariff would permit, in the building of iron ships, and I should like to ask the Senator from Maine to give us further his views, not in respect to the effect of the admission duty free of ships of wood ready-built from other parts, but whether he would conceive it to be an admissible proposition in the present condition of the American manufacture of iron-built ships that readybuilt iron ships should be admitted free of duty.

It is perfectly well known to the country that in intelligent, scientific, labor-saving machinery we are to day, even in our iron shipbuilding yards, in advance of the rest of the world; that despite the onerous conditions and burdens of our tariff there stands between us and the skilled manufacturers of Great Britain but about seventeen to twenty per cent. in favor of them and against us in the increased cost of our material owing to tariff duties.

I am exceedingly anxious to have the problem solved, how the lost prestige of America can be regained; how we can, as I think it is due to the ingenuity and skill of our workmen, regain the first place in this race for the world's commerce. As that is a question which I am anxious to see solved in favor of America, and anything tending to a favorable solution of it would lead me to favor such a measure, I should like to ask the honorable Senator from Maine whether in his view of the future of American ship-building he considers that iron or wood is to be the material of which ships are chiefly to be constructed.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I have just one answer, and in a single phrase, as to allowing foreign ships to return under our flag, and that is, never. That is not a new question with me. We had it here early after the war. There are many reasons, which I have not time to state now. why that should not be so. The uniform policy of this Government has been, and it is the policy of all Governments, and their necessity, a policy growing out of that necessity, if they intend to build up a merchant marine, to build it by constructing their own ships and to a great extent sailing their own ships. That answers that point.

Now, as to the problem of iron ships displacing wooden ships, I do not believe it is to be done. To a very great extent, undoubt edly, it is true that iron ships are to enter into the navigating interests of the world. Eng. land has pressed this question of iron ships beyond the proper limits. England has a single material out of which to make ships, and she makes the most of all her materials in whatever direction she goes. She has been trying to convert the world to the idea that nothing but iron ships would do; all else must go under. It is not so.

There is no time for argument on this point, but two or three facts will suffice. During all this experiment of England, when the world

was gaping and willing to swallow anything in that direction, and the belief was becoming very general that iron ships were to take the place of wooden ships, down in the State of Maine, despite all the embarrassing circumstances under which we have labored, we have constantly built one class of vessels and sent them abroad; sent them to England and sold them in Liverpool for the East India market. That is a class of ships they cannot build in England. They have not the material. They have not the pine, nor have they the oak. Those we build and sell in England. They go into the East India trade.

Mr. SHERMAN. What size are they? Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. A large size, two thousand, two thousand five hundred, or three thousand tons.

Mr. COLE. Do you build them now?

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. Yes, sir, we build them now. I know this to be a fact, and that fact tells on this point. What use do they make of them? Why do they want them? We sell them to the very country that is telling the world that iron ships are to displace wooden ships. The reason for that is this: they want those ships for the East India trade. Will not a two thousand ton ship from the Clyde, of iron, do? No, and for two reasons: first, because the barnacles accumulate rapidly on iron ships in those low latitudes; and, in the second place, they cannot preserve the cargo. in an iron hull; it sweats the cargo, and for that reason they pay a big price for this manufacture of ship.

Mr. BAYARD. Steam or sailing vessels? Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. A sailing vessel; but of course the same principle applies to steam vessels.

I will state one other fact of a general character and that will answer, for there is no time to argue this question. While England has been talking about supplanting wooden ships all over the world, steadily within the last two years the wooden sailing vessels have been increasing, and the navigating lists in England and this country show that fact. They have gone upon the ground that they would supplant all the ship-building interests all over the world by their iron steamships, while the records of the navigating interests for the last two years show that steadily in the face of that the sailing vessels and wooden ships have been gaining ground.

I think these two facts answer my honorable friend, and it seems to me they are facts tending very strongly to satisfy us that if we can have now by act of Congress what is proposed by the Committee on Commerce, cheap mate. rial, or, if Congress cannot afford to do that, and in the course of events a condition of things shall be brought about as favorable to the manufacture of ships as existed before the war, then you will find growing out of the inherent energy and force of this people, and out of the great fact which cannot be overlooked that we have got all the materials for iron and wooden vessels, we will beat the world when that time comes. Congress can hasten it, and they ought to do so. have been talking here, my honorable friend [Mr. ScoTT] has been kind enough to put into my hand a paper which shows that while we are hesitating whether we can do these things there are men actually asking for contracts to build iron ships at something like ten per cent. more than they are building them for in England.

While we

Mr. WINDOM. I do not rise to make a speech at this time, but I wish to answer very briefly the question suggested by the Senator from Ohio, why it became necessary in the opinion of the committee to give treble pay for double service. The committee do not understand that the company are getting any such pay for double service, The existing contract of the company for carrying this mail is $150,000 from this Government, on condition that Brazil pays $150,000, so that

during the existence of the present contract they would receive that sum. Succeeding that, however, unless the Government pays the amount of $300,000 after the expiration of the present contract they will not receive the amount they do now.

I do not desire to speak on this subject now, but I do wish to appeal to the Senate to

come to a vote.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the substitute offered by the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. STOCKTON. I propose to say simply a word with reference to a remark that fell from the Senator from Maine. I have no doubt he is right in saying that wooden ships in this country will continue to be valuabe for some time; but he will admit, and no man can deny, that in the main portions of the commerce of the world the iron ships are fast taking their place, and if for no other reason, because they are so much more durable, making the vessels so much better. I have hastily looked over the amendment which he has offered, and it seems to me that it only embraces those articles which go to build a wooden ship.

Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. It is designed to embrace others-all ships.

Mr. STOCKTON. I am very glad to hear that it is so designed, but I think it probably needs some little alteration to make it clear.

Let me say to the Senator that it has come under my observation-perhaps I had better not say how, for we ought not to allude to what happens in committee unless it comes formally before the Senate-that just what he said he hoped would be true is to-day true. We can build in America to-day, in spite of the tariff, iron ships as cheap and cheaper than they can build them on the Clyde. American industry and energy can accomplish that to-day.

I am in favor of and shall most cheerfully support the Senator's amendment if it covers as he intends it to cover, the articles used in the manufacture of iron ships. Sir, this great problem that the Committee on Commerce have been talking so much about trying to solve can be solved by American energy and American industry to-day, and those ships can be built here in spite of the tariff. Adopt this amendment, modifying it so that it shall, if it does not now, cover the withdrawal of the duty on the iron used in the manufacture of iron vessels, and it will not be two years from the time that is done before our commerce and our shipping interests will be in a position quite as good as they were before the war. By the inventions of the American mind, by the condensation of great capital, by getting rid of long lines of transportation and approaching close to the iron hills and coal mines, by uniting all the cheapness of moving large material that can be united, it is practicable to-day to build iron vessels here as cheap as on the Clyde. Therefore I know of no measure that is more important that has ever been brought before the American Congress in reference to the ship-building interest than the amendment of the Senator from Maine, if it is made, as he says he intends it to be, to embrace the removal of the duties on iron entering into the construction of vessels. Mr. SAWYER. I move that the Senate adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; and (at four o'clock and forty-five minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

SATURDAY, May 4, 1872.

The House met at eleven o'clock a. m., Mr. RUSK in the chair as Speaker pro tempore. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. J. G. BUTLER, D. D.

The Journal of yesterday was read in part, when,

Mr. BECK asked unanimous consent that

The SPEAKER pro tempore. By order of the House the session of to-day is for debate only in the House as in Committee of the Whole, no business whatever to be transacted. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. GRIFFITH is entitled to the floor.

Mr. GRIFFITH. I will yield a portion of my time to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. ARTHUR.]

PROFLIGACY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.

Mr. ARTHUR. "Paint me as I am," said Cromwell to the artist. "If you leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." It matters but little in what school of political economy we have studied, sooner or later we are confronted with the stubborn fact that both Governments and men must practice economy or their freedom must perish. It is indispensable. In a purely material sense, in one form or another, it underlies every virtue and achieves every success. There can be no permanency without it. It is the paramount law of the material world around us. It preserves the symmetry of the universe. It moves alike the sun in his zenith and the ant on its atom. It is essential to good government. It is more obligatory in public than in private life. The private man deals with what is his; the public man with what is not his. He exercises a trust, and a trust is more sacred than a right, because it is another's right in trust, and is both a right and a trust.

The importance of this principle is increased by the magnitude of the wealth and resources involved, and it rises with these until it is found to comprehend every question and pervade every interest of both Government and people. Profligacy in government is little and ignoble. Economy in government is great and noble. The former degrades the career of the public man who acts as though public station was made for him, and the latter ennobles the career of the public man who strives always to realize that he was made for the station.

It is the coördinate grandeur and utility of this great principle which makes the statesman illustrious and the Government the glory of the people. It is not only compatible with every rational development, improvement, and embellishment, but it is incompatible with venality and parsimony, and is the munificent patron, the judicious architect, and the provi dent conservator of all the former. It leaves the values of the people to be controlled by the people; it sternly retrenches revenue and expenditures; it keeps its hands out of the pockets of the people, and leaves capital and production to the industry, enterprise, and skill of those who made, who own, and who can best apply them.

Wherever it is wanting political morality is wanting. The habitual waste of the public wealth is fatal to political integrity. No official can abuse his trust, or misapply the public money, and preserve either his personal or political integrity. The slightest lowering of the standard of absolute official fidelity breaks the enamel and continuity of the moral nature, and general demoralization sets in. The atmosphere around becomes infected. It spreads through an administration like hot air through a burning building. It confounds the good with the bad; for if the former do not sink under the contagion, they are girdled with it, and cut off from the sympathy of the good. The stains it leaves can never be effaced. They blacken alike the genius and philosophy of a Bacon, the courage and victory of a Marl borough. Past great services cannot efface them; they stick all the closer, and glowering there, remain forever a haunting evil to warn and to repel. Station cannot honor, authority

cannot solace, patronage cannot redeem, nor wealth cover up. Vitality is gone. Economy in the public receipts and expenditures comes to us with our political alphabet. It is the generic virtue of our financial system. It is the New Testament of our constitutional Messiah; it is as eminently American as any of the peculiar features of our system; it was alway revered and practiced by our great Presidents and The slightest deviation from it was sternly challenged and promptly recalled; and the States and Government grew apace. It is to popular government_what muscular exercise is to the athlete. It develops and preserves every resource and precludes every

statesmen.

vice.

Since governments were instituted among men its exercise was never more necessary than now. It is so upon many grounds. I will now mention but two, either of which is sufficiently significant. The great drama of the last decade has advertised first, the almost fabulous wealth, developed and undeveloped, of our soil and people; and second, the impotency of constitutional restraints and the infinite gluttony of official plunder. If the capacity of our people and the treasure of our soil for the elements alone necessary in the leading power of the habitable globe, shall these great elements be diverted from the righthful dominion of individuals and communities to whom they belong, and be consumed by countless hordes of personal parasites and official jackals who swell the ranks of successful factions?

The demoralization in political life is such that those creatures will be found more or less in every successful camp. They are unadulterated mercenaries, and when the battle goes against them, they will readily swap their flag.

But touch these cormorants with the spear of retrenchment, and they are exorcised. Cut down the revenue, reduce the expendi tures, stop the methodical, universal, and measureless plunder of the amazing resources of the country, and almost instantly two changes will be inaugurated, political rogues and officials of easy virtue will disappear, and in their wonted place once more will stand honest and capable men, faithful to liberty and progress.

In our valleys and mountains, in our hills and plains, girdled by rivers, lakes, and seas, in our agriculture, manufactures, and com. merce, are found all the noblest elements for enlightened administration and great public economy.

The eye of the Federal statesman overlooks the grandest dominion upon earth. Three million five hundred thousand square miles of ter ritory, abounding with every constituent of wealth and power, are spread out before him from ocean to ocean in continental magnifi cence. Mountains, monumental proclamations of slumbering mineral and metallic treasure surmount it, festooned with purple foliage or crowned with glittering gems of ice and snow. Great rivers and lakes traverse it from sea to sea. Every village is a port of entry; every metropolis a maritime center.

The political organization of those natural elements looks back only a brief interval beyond three quarters of a century; and yet the Federal statesmen of to-day legislate upon a basis of accumulated wealth exceeding $30,000,000,000, an external trade of which the imports and exports alone exceed since 1866 $5,700,000,000, and in a single year, the fiscal year ending in June, 1871, $1,133,000,000.

A Federal revenue exceeding in six years the almost fabulous treasure of $6,240,000,000; and in a single year, that ending with June, 1871, the sum of $980,904,349; an annual popular production and earning of near seven billions, and an annual increase in the value of real and personal property of far more than one thousand million dollars. With less than fourteen souls to the square mile, a population of forty million freemen, the flower of Europe,

Asia, and America, hurried forward in every department of human mastery by a momentum of brain and muscle, strengthened by exer. tions, accelerated by obstacles, and omnipotent everywhere.

Less than twenty-eight fleeting years only, shut out the view from the looming summit of the nineteenth century, when that forty million people will number not less than one hundred million, and that $30,000,000,000 treasure will, it is estimated, number over $258,000,000,000, and all the multitudinous elements of material and political wealth and power will have been extended in equal ratio, unless, in the meantime, political degeneracy and official turpitude shall have fatally infected the seed of our growth.

Like promontories and light-houses to the mariner, the great outlines and natural resources of public wealth lie exposed even to the fugitive sight, but the latent forces, the affinities, the relative capabilities and general utilization of the latter require the bold eye and circumspect vision of philosophic statesmanship. Under such guidance government will be unerringly confined to its appropriate sphere, which is that of an impartial conservator of the peace, while a free people, stripped of superfluous public burdens, and manfully girded for the field, steadily pursue the race of development, accumulation, and power.

That government is greatest which goverus the least; then is it a perversion and a curse when it alternately sneaks or plunges into the place of the manager, or the owner, and so enters the farm, the factory, the counting room, the machine-shop, the ship, or the mine, to advance what it inevitably retards, to create what it inevitably destroys.

The wisest statesmanship is the greatest economy of the popular resources; the most vicious statesmanship, their greatest abuse. The former leaves with the people all but a tithe, the latter takes from the people all but a tithe. The one sees his own in his country's wealth; the other sees his country's wealth in his personal aggrandizement.

In a purely public sense, the reckless departure of the Federal Administration from the masculine republican simplicity of our beginning and better progress is in itself organic decay. The theory in practice with the party in power is that receipts and expenditures should increase in like proportion with increase in wealth and population. This would be false economy in private affairs, in private life, and would be a vice in a private man. It is downright corruption in public affairs, in public life, and is criminal in a public man. It is by no means every increase in numbers and treasure that authorizes increase of revenue or excuses increase of expenditure. A government perfectly organized and equipped in functions, forms, and officials, should, in the main, adhere to the standard of public expenditures which had been sanctioned by three quarters of a century of private felicity and public glory.

The increase in public revenue and expenditure should keep pace, in no appreciable sense, with the growth of wealth and population. The people ought not to be taxed in proportion to what they may be able to pay, and the Government ought not to stretch its expenditures to the shifting horizon of its possible exactions. Details undoubtedly will multiply, attended by incidental increase of expenditure. This is expected, is inevitable; this, but no more. The plain but vast edifice, its three great coördinate departments, its eminent officials, and great arms of public service remain, or should remain, monuments of republican simplicity, sacred in the affections and salutary to the morals of the people. A Government like ours has pratically a twofold character. It is sensibly the servant, and insensibly the educator of the people. It becomes a huge seminary of vice when it exacts from the pro