"The amount of building to keep up the different fleets now existing being thus brought to view, it may be stated that 58,307 plus 12,724, equal to 71,031 tons of sail and steam, needs be built the first year. Last year there was built of sail above 500 tons 21,335 tons; of steam, 17,952 tons; total, 39,287 tons.

"Thus, to enlarge our marine at all we must double the amount of building in recent years. To change gradually from sail to steam tonnage we shall have to treble our building expenditures, and with such increase our tonnage would not be greater in ten years than it is at present, though our shipping then would have threefold efficiency, and double the class duration.

"As the entire tonnage of all kinds, ocean, lake, and river, built last year was 231,134 tons, and the proportion qualified to enter the foreign trade was only 17 per cent. of this total, it may be a matter of surprise that there is so little building of the larger vessels. Sloop, barge, and canal-boat building, steam-boat, tug, and fishing-boat building burden our statistics with tonnage, but do not provide yards, shops and engineworks, shipwrights, engineers, and tools for genuine ship-work, such as must be done to construct vessels fit for foreign carrying trade. The greater number of mechanics employed in turning out tonnage for inferior purposes have neither the training nor the tools to build ships of wood or metal.

"It is, therefore, apparent that the second year of the new law will see but little addition to the tonnage of the first. There was a small apparent gain last year in our steam shipping in the foreign trade, but, as our investigation shows that our Al sail vessels have only 83 per cent. of remaining class time that they had four years ago, and that our steamers are worse off still, having only 75 per cent. of the class life before them in 1886, it is certain there was no real improvement in the situation. Not only are ships in the foreign trade lapsing fast from class, but the larger craft in the coasting trade, steam as well as sail, are growing older and losing fitness for their work.

"So dead is the building for foreign trade that, of the vessels launched and contracted for in Maine in the past five months, 93 per cent. are for the protected home service. "Considering all the circumstances of our marine, and carefully anticipating the effect of the law, the following table is offered as a solution of the problem, what will it cost annually, for the next ten years, and for the lifetime of the measure?

"MINIMUM AMOUNT OF TOTAL BUSINESS FOR TEN YEARS.

"The average for each year of the ten is $128,460,248.

"The culmination of payments would occur in 1899. After 1900 the bounty would decrease one-tenth each year. By 1910 it would cease. The average annual payments for the last nine years would probably amount to $2,695,540: and for each of the nineteen years of the law's operation the average annual expenditure would be $4,114,245.

"COMMERCIAL CONSEQUENCES.

"With regard to the commercial consequences of thus supporting and encouraging our marine in foreign trade it might be fitting to say a few words, or to offer a reasonable speculation upon their amount. It is, of course, well understood that a merchant marine actively employed sets in motion many pursuits, and creates many callings besides those peculiarly its own, These are so many that a detail would be tedious. I will therefore include only the chief trades and transactions, namely, ship-building, freighting, merchandising, insurance, and banking, in the totals of the estimate which follows:

"PROBABLE INCREASE OF MARINE AND BOUNTY PAYMENTS FOR TEN YEARS TO

"The bounty paid for this business would amount, by the figures, to 4 per cent. only. But, as the law would run nineteen years, and the average of business for ten years might be expected to continue for the time following, it results that only 2 per cent. per annum would stand for the commission or protection paid for an American foreign commerce and carrying trade for the whole term of the law's existence.

"It may therefore be summed up that the bounty would represent a very low premium on the business transacted, whether great or small, by and through the merchant marine; at once the budget of honest toil, the means of enterprise and wealth, and the solid base of national rank and power.

"Very respectfully yours,

"Hon. JOHN M. FARQUHAR,

"Chairman Committee on Marine and Fisheries,

"WM. W. BATES,

"House of Representatives."

Commissioner

Mr. FRYE. Mr. President, as to the reasonableness of the United States doing something for its vessels I read from the report of the Postmaster-General, showing what this country made every year out of its foreign mail service. To me it is utterly inexcusable. It has made over $10,000,000 out of this foreign mail service in the last fifteen years. In the last twelve years it has made over $9,000,000 out of the foreign mail service. If you can show me where it has made anything out of the mail service in any of the States, on any of the rivers, in any of the coastwise-trade vessels, I should be glad to know where it is. The United States makes a profit alone in the foreign mail service. I say it is the duty of the United States to take that money it makes out of its foreign mail service and do something to put its mails under an American flag, and that no Senator ought to object to.

Now, take another thing. We have collected tonnage taxes since 1863 to the amount of $30,364,000, and so far as that tonnage tax has been collected from American vessels up to 1884, when we passed our shipping act, the vessels never had received one dollar of benefit from the United States. When we passed that act they did, because the United States then assumed the payments which those vessels had been compelled to make for consular fees and almost everything else; but up to that time the United States had given nothing in return for that taxation; and yet in every State in the United States up to within the last eight years those ships have been compelled to bear their equal burden of taxation with all other property in the States, while Great Britain taxes not a single ship, not a single one, only puts a bit of an income tax on the net income derived from the line.

During the war what protection did our ships get? That is the time when the Government owes protection to its ships if it ever does. That is the time when our shipowners need Government protection. They had absolutely none, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons were compelled to go under a foreign flag, under an anonymous sail, in order to keep upon the ocean at all, and those vessels that remained under our flag were compelled to pay an enormous insurance premium to keep there, the United States doing absolutely nothing for them.

Now, why should not the United States in justice do something for its ships? Is it too much to ask that it shall take from its tonnage tax; is it too much to ask that it shall take from its net profits on the foreign mail service and pay something to carry the mails under the flag?

Mr. President, I feel an intense interest in these bills, in both of them. From my situation early in life my attention has been called more than that of most Senators to the subject of ships and shipping. I have labored ever since I have been here, in both Houses, in season, and many Senators will say out of season, in the matter of relief to the merchant marine. A great deal has been accomplished, I admit; and yet, as I said the other day, in the foreign carrying trade we are dead. In my opinion if either one of these bills passes the Senate and becomes a law, the first real step for the resurrection of this dead body will have been accomplished.

There never has been a time in the twenty years I have served here so opportune as this. Capital is seeking everywhere investment, no longer so anxious for the public domain, becoming a little uncertain about mortgages in the West, looking around now to see where it shail go. The sentiment of the country has been aroused, and the people are looking to see whether something can not be done.

The ship-yards of this country in their capacity for building great ships have doubled in five years. There is not a ship to-day can be called for that can not be provided by our own ship-yards. Their capacity is not what it ought to be. There ought to be beyond any question a great iron-ship yard on the Alabama River.

Let these bills, or either of them, become a law, and that ship-yard will be established there, and iron ships will be built there. We have not to-day half the capacity we ought to have for building these great ships, but yet we have double, as I said, what we had five years ago. There is nothing this nation desires to do that it can not do when the necessity is upon us. Nobody dreamed four years ago that you could build two great iron war-ships in San Francisco, and yet they have been built.

Mr. President, I hope that to-morrow we shall get a vote on these bills. I earnestly hope that both bills will be sent to the other House. I believe that one of them will become a law if they are both sent to that body.

The following House Report on the Frye or postal subsidy bill is worthy of insertion here:

OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.

The Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads, to whom was referred the bill (S. 3739) "to provide for ocean mail service between the United States and foreign ports, and to promote foreign commerce," submit the following report:

The title of the bill signifies its purpose and provisions concisely.

THE PURPOSE OF THE BILL.

The ocean mail service promotes commerce, and commerce fluctuates in volume, in prosperity or depression, according to the frequency and regularity of our mail service with foreign countries.

The purpose is easily stated and would seem to need no argument, for it is distinct and positive that trade follows the flag of a fast and regular mail steam-ship upon the

ocean.

This declaration of a fact and resultant are, nevertheless, often questioned, remarkable as it is, even in the halls of Congress, and it is necessary, therefore, in presenting the report of the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads to this House, to examine the question and argue the proof of the correctness of the declaration.

THE PROVISIONS OF THE BILL.

In order to examine the bill clearly and thoroughly, although briefly, it is best first to state the provisions for effecting the purpose.

First. Authority and instruction given to the Postmaster-General to enter into contracts for a term of from five to ten years for carrying the mails.

Second. That such contracts shall be made with American citizens owning American steam-ships.

Third. That the crew shall be citizens of the United States, proportionate to the possibility of yearly education in nautical training.

Fourth. That the said steam-ships shall be of four classes in construction and speed. Fifth. That the compensation shall be at the rate specified in the said bill. Sixth. That officers of the U. S. Navy, cadets, apprentices, etc., shall be permitted to enter such service.

Seventh. That such steam-ships may be taken and used by the United States when desired, upon stipulated compensation.

THE GREAT PURPOSE.

To provide for ocean mail service and to promote commerce.

There are two features only in this purpose, one the emergency from maritime impotency requiring immediate relief; the other, what is the proper relief? Regarding the former there is no difference of opinion in the House of Representatives, nor in the other House of this Congress; it is an indisputable fact that causes every American to bow his head in humility and shame.

There is but one voice throughout the country, professedly, upon this point, yet some of those whose voices are often heard in Congress in eloquent affirmation of this national disgrace are not willing to make an effort to relieve our people and our country of this mortifying condition and hazardous contingency.

Regarding the latter feature, there has been and is, unfortunately, much difference of opinion as to the proper and best means of relieving our country of this disgrace, and restoring an industry into which all other industries enter, the revival of which would bring employment and prosperity to every pursuit of life and honor to our country.

There is, however, one point that must be recognized and can not be refuted with truth in regard to this latter feature of the subject under consideration, and that is, our statesmen have tried a policy of neglect or of tergiversation for the last thirty-five years which has steadily deteriorated and destroyed American shipping until our commerce has passed (indeed it may be said with impunity) entirely out of our hands and into the control and benefit of foreign rival powers.

It is difficult to concentrate in a brief statement a vast accumulation of facts and data that are so evident and convincing in so great an economic subject, for the evidence is illimitable and the temptation strong to dwell at length in its discussion, until the evil shall be eliminated and the glorions era of American shipping revived.

In hastily reviewing the official records to find a substantial foundation for logical argument it is best, perhaps, first to demonstrate incontrovertibly the period when the decadence of our shipping began.

The following exhibits are taken from official records of the United States Treasury Department. The diagram is based upon the same official figures and presented in such a manner as to demonstrate to the eye at a glance the periods and the causes of the rise and tall of American shipping.

The tabulation shows a comparison of subsidy paid by the United States to foreign and to domestic interests in carrying our own mails, together with the tonnage and commerce of corresponding years.