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142 THE MARINE REVIEW DEVOTED TO MARINE ENGINEERING, SHIP BUILDING AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES Published Monthly by - The Penton Publishing Company Penton Building, Cleveland. CHICINN. é ' ae 503 Mercantile Library Bldg. . 2 - = ° 1115 West Street Bldg. NE SBURGH - : - - - - 2148-49 Oliver Bldg. PHILADELPHIA - - - - - - 611 Bulletin Bldg. WASHINGTON, D. C. ° Sey 2 Z o ibbs Bldg. BIRMINGHAM, ENG. - - - - - Prince Chambers Subscription, $2 delivered free anywhere in the world. Single copies, 20 cents. Back numbers over three months, 50 cents. Change of advertising copy must reach this office on or before the first of each month. The Cleveland News Co. will supply the trade with cue MARINE REVIEW through the regular channels of the American News Co. European Agents, The International News Company, Breams Building, Chancery Lane, London, E. C., England. - Entered at the Post Office at Cleveland, Ohio, as Second Class Matter. (Copyright 1913, by Penton Publishing Company) April, 1913 Our Merchant Marine One of the most earnest advocates of the up- building of an American merchant marine is Lewis l Nixon, who has been all his life identified with af-_ fairs maritime. A recent article of his in the New York Sun is fairly bristling with epigram and is full of argument. Consider this: "The strategy of trade is as important as the strategy of war, and enlightened patriotism requires that we should safeguard our country against any and all possible adverse combinations. We are faced upon the oceans by a monopoly of ship- building and of the arts and accessories of navi- gation. together with inordinate naval power. Such a condition threatening our prosperity should arouse us to immediate action. "There is no way in which we can resume our destined place upon the ocean without displeasing some one, and the greater the benefits a country receives from our suspension of our constitutional rights to regulate commerce the greater its resent- ment will be against any and all steps taken to re- sume such regulation. We cannot reap, without sowing. Nations concede no rights that are not asserted." He is heartily in favor of a remission of tolls to American ships passing through the Panama canal, saying: "Even the little encouragement of the toll re- mission on coasting vessels has filled our shipyards as they have not been for years. I have heard men, THE MARINE REVIEW 1328 Monadock Blk. '000,000 a year for ocean transportation. it increased; _ April, 1913 encouraged by the sophistical flow of words, tel} that the remission of tolls will not benefit the peo- ple, yet we hear the president of the American- Hawaiian Steamship Company among others here in New York tell us that he is quoting rates via the canal plus toll charges if exacted. Volumes -could not answer this argument more conclusively, "We need most remission of tolls in the foreign trade. This is because it will quickly rehabilitate our marine in such trade. Of course our people will have foreign influences telling them that this is not so, that these same influences prevailed on the weak kneed economist to put ships on the free list, knowing that the only way in which this could benefit our marine would be at the cost of the destruction of our shipbuilding industry. "Where are the foreign ships that we were as- sured would rush to our flag? Where are they? The very men who advocated this policy knew it was a dead letter or else were too ignorant to know . anything. We may eventually get the fruit carry- ing fleet, but that is about all of importance." He says that we are spending more than $300,- In 1907 we exported $1,800,000,000 of goods and imported $1,200,000,000, so that other things being equal a balance of trade statement as usually given should indicate a credit abroad of $600,000,000; yet that year every time a few millions in gold left us on sailing days a shiver ran through the commercial districts, so there must be an unaccounted for drain. Mr. Nixon adds: "This is the vast sum paid for ocean transporta- tion and so long as this is not kept at home we must dig and delve and sweat to produce an excess of exports over imports to pay for it, for commerce includes transportation as well as trade and barter and a balance of trade statement as usually given is as misleading as would be that of a merchant who did not include his delivery charges. We must add our transportation charges to our imports, as they are the price paid for the use of foreign tools, ships being the tools of commerce just as much as if such product were a bolt of silk or a case of wine. "Certainly if we carry our exports in our own ships we increase our credit abroad, where we wish while if we bring our exports in ouf own vessels we reduce our debt at home, where we want it reduced. While our exports may be carried very well by foreign vessels, it is certain that with all trade connections in foreign hands they can largely control the disposition and the prices. Eng- lish freight charges, for example, range the highest, while they get our goods at the lowest rates. Our wheat is sometimes poured into Liverpool and Bristol under such conditions and so sags the maf- ket that the price of wheat is lowered on the most distant farm.