OUR PRESENT OCEAN MAIL POLICY.

It can not be too strongly emphasized that all that is proposed in this present bill is to apply a well-established policy of the United States to ocean routes not reached in a satisfactory way by existing ocean-mail legislation. As President Roosevelt said on January 16 in his address before the national convention for the extension of foreign commerce, "It is not an experimental bill," "This bill is an absolute necessity if we are to meet foreign competition."

Few persons not engaged in ocean commerce know it, but the fact is that for several years the Post-Office Department has been paying subventions, under contracts almost identical with those now proposed, to five or six postal lines of American steamships. In 1890-91, responding to the urgent recommendations of President Harrison, Congress enacted an ocean mail law which now provides efficient postal communication under the American flag with Europe, the West Indies, Mexico, Venezuela, certain isles of the Pacific, and New Zealand and Australia, at a total cost of about $1,400,000 a year. These postal lines, now six in number, include a very large proportion of what is most modern and efficient in the present American ocean fleet-indeed, practically all of our steam tonnage regularly engaged in foreign trade, except for a few large vessels built in anticipation of the passage of the shipping bill of 1898-1902.

Within certain limitations, this ocean mail law of 1891 has been successful-that is, for postal services extending not more than 4,000 miles from the shores of the United States. But the law as originally drawn, and as passed by the Senate, was cut down one-third in its rates of compensation by the House of Representatives. The effect was the same as if a protective tariff had been reduced to a point where it did not offset the difference in wages and other conditions of a given industry here and abroad-in other words, to a point where the duty failed to be genuinely protective.

When this ocean mail bill, thus cut down, was passed by the House in 1891 it was declared by merchants and others familiar with the shipping business that the law might create a few lines to the Caribbean and perhaps a line to Europe, but that, as reduced, it would completely fail to provide postal service on the longer and more difficult and costly routes to South America and the Orient. The experience of sixteen years has absolutely confirmed this expert judgment.

AN EXTENSION OF EXISTING POLICY.

What is now proposed is simply to take up this same well-established national policy of postal payments wherever the Harrison law of 1891 has proved to be inadequate, and to offer mail compensation which will beyond all question give the United States a first-class ocean service under its own flag to South America, Australasia, and the Orient. The only route now covered by an existing line of steamships operating under the law of 1891, for which any increased compensation is provided in this bill, is the long 7,000-mile line from San Francisco across the Pacific to Samoa, New Zealand, and Australia. Here the Oceanic line has been instrumental in developing a great and prosperous American commerce, but has met with heavy losses

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because of the peculiarly exacting conditions of the service. Unless its compensation is increased, this important line, and a great part of the trade which it has created, will have to be abandoned to our European and Japanese competitors. The American people are not quitters," nor do they desire to have Congress "quit in a case like this, where every consideration, both of honor and of profit, demands a policy of courage and go-ahead.

VERY FEW AMERICAN SHIPS AFLOAT.

There are a few scattered American ships, but no complete lines under the terms of this bill, now struggling against foreign competition across the Pacific to the Orient and down the Pacific coast to Panama. But in the Atlantic and the Gulf not one American steamship now runs on any one of the three proposed routes to South America. These Atlantic and Gulf lines must be created from the very beginning as to the ships themselves, the organization of the firms or companies to run them, and the establishment of the entire business.

Moreover, in the Pacific not one American steamship is now afloat in the proposed service south of Panama. These facts, as well as the peculiar commercial and political importance of improved communication with South America, so ably set forth by Secretary Root, are a thorough justification for the liberal compensation proposed in this bill for a swift and regular service, equal, and indeed superior, to that now enjoyed on these same routes by any European government.

ADVANTAGES TO AMERICAN LABOR.

This bill requires explicitly that the postal payments shall be given on all the proposed lines only to "steamships hereafter built in the United States and registered in the United States, or now duly registered by a citizen or citizens of the United States (including as such citizens any corporation created under the laws of the United States or any of the States thereof, a majority of the stock of which shall be and shall continue to be owned by citizens of the United States)." Moreover, this bill goes beyond existing law and gains a further advantage for American labor by requiring that "all ordinary repair or overhauling of a steamship employed and paid for carrying mails under this section shall be made in the United States, except in cases where dry docking is necessary, and no American dry dock of sufficient capacity shall be within a distance of 500 miles of the location of said ship when the repairs shall be needed.”

Just now because of prosperous conditions in the coastwise trade, from which foreign vessels are excluded, there is a large amount of new construction in both the Atlantic and Pacific shipyards of the United States and most of the skilled workmen of this industry are employed at high American wages. But to complete all these coastwise vessels which as a rule are not large or expensive, will require only a few more months, and in less than a year our coast shipyards, with the temporary coastwise boom ended, will be facing the severest depression in their history, and thousands of these skilled men will be thrown out of employment or driven to sustain themselves at other and low paid callings.

The enactment of this bill will provide steady work at good wages for several years to come for a deserving class of American workmen, who for fifty years have failed of their rightful share in American prosperity. Most of such steamships as those provided for in this bill will cost each upward of a million dollars for construction; very few will cost less than that. It is the estimate of practical shipbuilders that 90 per cent or more of the cost of a million-dollar steamship, with her boilers, engines, and other machinery and equipment, is represented by labor-about 60 per cent of this in assembling the material and equipment in the shipyard itself, and the rest in the various processes of preparation, beginning with the tree in the forest and the ore in the mine.

Therefore the direct benefits of this bill to American labor are not confined to shipyards of the coast States, but reach away back to the coal and iron fields of the interior States and to the scores of trades and callings whose products enter into the complete and furnished ocean steamer. American labor-intelligent, genuine American labor-thoroughly recognizes the advantage to labor of having ships that convey the mails, passengers, and freight of the United States built in the United States, and for three or four years labor organizations all over the United States have been petitioning Congress to enact such legislation as that proposed in this bill. It is safe to assume that these American workmen know their rights and know their interests. They regard the proposed legislation as bearing exactly the same relation to the prosperity of the shipbuilding trade as the protective tariff bears to American manufacturing, and they believe that the one is as indispensable as the other.

A BILL FOR AMERICAN SAILORS.

This bill is as advantageous to the men who officer and man our ocean mail ships as it is to the men who build them. Beyond the requirement that the officers shall be American citizens, there is no restriction as to nationality in regard to the crews of American merchant ships in general. There is no restriction even as to the crews of mail and passenger steamships, unless these vessels are operated under a regular ocean-mail contract with the United States. Thus, because most of the foreign mail liners-even the subsidized mail liners on the Pacific Ocean employ low-wage Asiatic crews, our few unsubsidized American steamships running from the Pacific coast to Japan and China are forced to employ Orientals as sailors and firemen. But on the mail lines proposed in this bill, as required by the ocean mail law of 1891, made applicable to this present measure, "the following proportion of the crew shall be citizens of the United States, to wit: During the first two years of such contract for carrying the mails, one-fourth thereof; during the next three succeeding years, one-third thereof, and during the remaining time of the continuance of the contract at least one-half thereof."

This means in effect that all the steamships on the Pacific which may undertake the contracts proposed under this bill-including existing steamships as well as those required to be built to make up a full service-must eventually employ crews all or nearly all white and at least one-half Americans, for it is well known that Chinese and Caucasians can not be induced to work together in the same capacity on

deck or in the fireroom. Under this bill there will be an increased demand for both officers and seamen who are American citizens. This fact is frankly recognized by the best American element among our present seafaring men, and American sailors--not foreigners masquerading as Americans but genuine sailor citizens-every were welcome, and sustain such protective legislation as that embodied in this present bill.

It should be remembered that by sections 12 and 13 of the free list of the Dingley tariff all steel and other materials required for the construction, equipment, or repair of American ships in foreign commercethe class of steamships provided for in this bill-can be imported free of duty. It is therefore impossible to pretend that the proposed bill is legislation for the benefit of the steel trust or any other combination. The chief shipbuilders of the country testified last April before this committee that they were free to import all materials for ocean ships if they wished to do so, and that though as a matter of fact they did use American steel because of convenience in obtaining and handling it, yet it was laid down in their yards at substantially the same prices for which like material could be imported duty free from Europe.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S COUNSEL.

President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress, in December, 1905, said:

To the spread of our trade in peace and the defense of our flag in war, a great and prosperous merchant marine is indispensable. We should have ships of our own and seamen of our own to convey our goods to neutral markets, and, in case of need, to reenforce our battle line. It can not but be a source of regret and uneasiness to us that the lines of communication with our sister republics of South America should be chiefly under foreign control. It is not a good thing that American merchants and manufacturers should have to send their goods and letters to South America via Europe if they wish security and dispatch. Even on the Pacific, where our ships have held their own better than on the Atlantic, our merchant flag is now threatened through the liberal aid bestowed by other governments on their own steam lines.

Postmaster-General Cortelyou, in his annual report for 1905, said: Congress has authorized the Postmaster-General, by the act of 1891, to contract with the owners of American steamships for ocean mail service, and has realized the impracticability of commanding suitable steamships in the interest of the postal service alone by requiring that such steamers shall be of a size, class, and equipment which will promote commerce and become available as auxiliary cruisers of the Navy in case of need. The compensation allowed to such steamers is found to be wholly inadequate to secure the proposals contemplated, hence advertisements from time to time have failed to develop any bids for much-needed service. This is especially true in regard to several of the countries of South America, with which we have cordial relations, and which, for manifest reasons, should have direct mail connections with us.

I refer to Brazil and countries south of it. Complaints of serious delay to mails for these countries have become frequent and emphatic, leading to the suggestion on the part of certain officials of the Government that for the present. and until more satisfactory direct communication can be established, importaut mails should be dispatched to South America by way of European ports and on European steamers, which would not only involve the United States in the payment of double transit rates to a foreign country for the dispatch of its mails to countries of our own hemisphere, but might seriously embarrass the Government in the exchange of important official and diplomatic correspondence. The fact that the Government claims exclusive control of the transmission of letter mail throughout its own territory would seem to imply that it should secure and maintain the exclusive jurisdiction, when necessary, of its mails on the high seas. The unprecedented expansion of trade and foreign commerce justifies prompt consideration of an adequate foreign mail service.

Secretary Root said in an address November 20 last, at Kansas City, after his return from his tour around South America:

Not one American steamship runs to any South American port beyond the Caribbean. During the past summer I entered the ports of Para. Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Bahia Blanca, Punta Arenas, Lota, Valparaiso, Coquimbo, Tocopilla, Callao, and Carthagena-all of the great ports and a large proportion of the secondary ports of the Southern Continent. I saw only one ship, besides the cruiser that carried me, flying the American flag. The mails between South America and Europe are swift, regular, and certain; between South America and the United States they are slow, irregular, and uncertain.

Six weeks is not an uncommon time for a letter to take between Buenos Aires or Valparaiso and New York. The merchant who wishes to order American goods can not know when his order will be received or when it will be filled. The freight charges between the South American cities and American cities are generally and substantially higher than between the same cities and Europe. At many points the deliveries of freight are uncertain and its condition upon arrival doubtful. The passenger accommodations are such as to make a journey to the United States a trial to be endured and a journey to Europe a pleasure to be enjoyed. The best way to travel between the United States and both the west coast and the east coast of South America is to go by way of Europe, crossing the Atlantic twice. It is impossible that trade should prosper or intercourse increase or mutual knowledge grow to any degree under such circumstances. The communication is worse now than it was twenty-five years ago. So long as it is left in the hands of our foreign competitors in business we can not reasonably look for any improvement. It is only reasonable to expect that European steamship lines shall be so marraged as to promote European trade in South America rather than to promote the trade of the United States in South America.

A FOREIGN STEAMSHIP TRUST.

These foreign steamship companies which own the slow and inferior "tramp" craft plying between South America and New York have organized a trust or combination to enable them the better to control our trade, as testified not only by American merchants and travelers, but by our diplomatic and consular representatives in South America. It is bad enough to be dependent on the grace of our foreign rivals in trade for the means of delivering our goods to our South American customers. It is worse to be dependent upon an arrogant and unscrupulous foreign steamship trust or "combine" for this indispensable service. These foreign steamship monopolists have a wholesome dread of national legislation for the establishment of an independent line of swift and regular American mail ships to the countries whose markets they seek to dominate.

OCEAN MAIL LEGISLATION OF YEARS AGO.

Not only are the ocean mail payments, proposed in this bill, well within the practice of our Government, as established by the ocean mail law of 1891, but they have an even earlier exact precedent in the legislation of 1845 and 1847, enacted in response to the recommendation of a Democratic President by Democratic Congresses. In 1840 Great Britain, by generous postals subventions, created the Cunard Line of trans-Atlantic steamers in competition with the American sailing packets, which had long dominated the western ocean. Hon. Thomas Butler King, of Georgia, and Hon. Thomas J. Rusk, of Texas, then began in Congress a memorable advocacy of national en