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14 MARINE REVIEW Protection is Needed. BY ALEXANDER R. SMITH. -- oe n, Port of New York. Compiler of Ship Building Rep Superintendent of the Maritime Associatio What is to be done to give us an Ameri- can mercantile ma- rine? That is the question that has, with increasing ur- gency, been confront- ing American states- men for nearly half a century. The answer is simplicity itself-- it must be sufficiently protected to prove a profitable investment for capital' 1t.is not now a profitable investment, and it is unprotected. When the era of high protection was ushered in that has built up our great industries, American shipping seemed prosperous, and it was left unprotected. During the period of our de- velopment under high protection American shipping has been steadily dropping below the horizon, and our protective pol- icy has created and is maintaining higher cost prices and higher wage rates here than obtain in other countries. A man can buy a British ship for two-thirds the sum that he would have to pay for an American ship; and he could run his British ship for two-thirds the sum required to run an American ship. The high cost of materials and the high wages paid to labor in the ship yards and on the ships have placed that handicap upon the American ship owner seeking to com- pete with foreign ships in our foreign trade--and these high costs are the result of the protective policy, a share in the en- joyment of which is denied to the American ship, when built. Some people say, why should we not then buy our ships abroad, where they are cheaper? and why should we not run them with foreigners, who are willing to work more cheaply? - Ask these people why we should not buy foreign steel, which can be produced for two-thirds the cost of American steel, they would answer that it is better to avail ourselves of our own materials and labor, even if such a preference does com- pel us to pay a higher price for our steel. We handicap for- eign steel and prevent it from competing with American steel, by protecting our own manufacturers. When I say for the very same reason we should build our own ships and run them with our own people, even if the cost is somewhat great- er, sometimes the very same people that see the reason why we should make our own steel with perfect clearness cannot also see why we should not make our own ships. I once ap- peared before a farmers' organization, asking it to adopt a resolution favoring the building of ships in American ship yards, in order, in part, to create a larger home market for the products of American farms among the people who would be employed in the building of ships. I was told, as was the resolutions committee, by an eminent granger, that American farmers received no protection. I said something about the difference between the cost of foreign and American wool, and he merely sniffed; but the fact is that our tariff imposes a duty upon foreign wool, competing with American wool, that gives American farmers who raise sheep from 33 to 50 per cent. more for their wool than they would receive were it not for the tariff on imported wool. But the man who was arguing with me said that in the raising of cattle there was no protection, and I asked him, then, why there was a duty on imported cattle, and he readily enough answered that the purpose was to prevent Mexicans and Canadians from "flood- ing the United States" with their cattle! But the eminent granger had his way, and the resolution was not adopted. After the committee adjourned a member of it approached ort of Twelfth United States Census. me and said: "I should have liked to vote for your resolution; I was impressed with what you said; but I am against pro- tection." I thanked him, and asked him from what part of the country he came, and he replied Georgia. I asked him if he was engaged in raising sugar in Georgia, as the culture of the sugar cane is receiving much attention, and with en- couraging results, in that state, and he replied that he raised cotton. I asked him, then, if his opposition to protection would induce him to favor abolishing the duty on sugar. To this he replied with an inquiry as to the amount of the duty, and when I informed him that it was about 109 per cent., that we could possibly buy our sugar for about one-half what it now costs us, if the duty were entirely removed, he rather lamely replied that he did not think that he "would first strike at a southern industry." I asked him if he, as a Geor- gian, favored the continuance of the protection on rice, pro- vided for in our tariff, and again he asked me how much the protection amounted to, and, although I told him that rice was protected by a duty amounting to about 80 per cent., that we could buy rice possibly for 60 per cent. of what we now paid, if there were no duty on competing rice, he again replied that he did not think my question was quite fair, since I had chosen products upon which to suggest free trade that were being encouraged in his own state, by an import duty on competing foreign products. I said that my purpose in specifying sugar and rice was to bring home to him, acute- ly, what the consequences would be to his own section were the protection withdrawn from the products of the soil that helped to make the state prosperous. I said that both the builders and the owners of American vessels experienced pre- cisely the hardships, through the lack of protection for our shipping in the foreign trade, that he at once realized sugar and rice producers would be subjected to in Georgia were the protection withdrawn from those staples.. And yet this man told me that he did not like to look upon the question in a sectional spirit! Protection for eastern ship builders and ship owners he regarded as sectional, possibly, and to be dis- couraged, but protection for sugar and rice producers he could not--or would not?--see was sectional at all. Very recently I was in Washington, and while there had the pleasure of meeting a gentleman from an extreme south- ern state, a representative in Congress, serving his first term. His section is given up almost entirely to the lumber indus- try, and it had been suggested to him that American forests were being denuded through the protection given to Amer- ican lumber, and that the removal of the duty on imported lumber would help to preserve our forests and denude for- eign forests. The southern representative quickly and em- phatically replied that no man could be elected to Congerss from his district who would vote to take the duty off of im- ported lumber. Possibly the last-named representative would see some justice in the demand of American ship owners for protection of their ships in competition with foreign ships, at least equal in amount to that enjoyed by his lumber-pro- ducing constituents. I notice that a bill has been introduced in Congress to ad- mit beef and poultry into the United States free of duty, 4 am sure, however, that the farmers will stoutly oppose the passage of this measure, if it should be seriously considered by Congress. We know that, much as they say that there 1s no protection for wheat, the farmers insist upon a high duty, 25 cents a bushel, I believe, on imported wheat, and it is laid in deference to the wishes of American farmers, just as the duty on wool, not entirely liked by wool manufacturers, is retained for the protection of American farmers. Farmers