The CHAIRMAN. Has our trade with South America improved much in recent years-our navigation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I do not understand that question. Our trade is increasing, the volume of our exports and imports is increasing, not in American ships, although I should say that, beginning in September or October last, the American-Hawaiian Line began running some of its steamships down to Brazil. Why I do not know. That is quite a significant fact, you know:

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not a fact that most of our exports to Brazil and other South American countries are conveyed in the first instance in foreign ships from New York to Europe and then transshipped into other foreign ships from that point to Brazil?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No; I think you are wrong in that. I think that is a mistake. This was true some years ago- a few years agothat a very considerable part of our mails for Brazil were sent to the other side and then down from England to Brazil, but I do not think, certainly not in late years, there has been any such movement of I think you have been misinformed by whoever told you that. Senator PAGE. Mr. Chamberlain, it is said there is always a supply for every demand. Do you expect that after the canal is opened there will be a demand for a very largely increased commerce from the Atlantic to Pacific coasts? Is there any legislation necessary to permit the United States to go into foreign ports and buy vessels for that commerce?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Necessary?

Senator PAGE. Yes; can we go now, without any further legislation, and buy vessels and bring them and put them under the American flag?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. You would have to change the laws.

Senator PAGE. I say, what legislation would be necessary to permit us to do that?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. You would have to provide for the admission of foreign-built ships under the American flag for the coastwise trade through the canal. In other words, you would have to extend section 5, of the Panama Canal act.

Senator PERKINS. It would practically mean a surrender of our shipyards to England and Germany?

Senator PAGE. I wished to ask if you thought that a feasible or a practical thing to be done, or shall we be able from our own shipyards to supply the demand of vessels for that canal trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. We have shipyards enough to do it, without doubt.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know how long it takes a letter, in the ordinary course, to go from here to Brazil or from Brazil to here?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No; I could not say. Of course, it would. depend upon the steamer.

The CHAIRMAN. I say in the ordinary course.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No; I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it goes direct from the United States south, or does the mail first go to Europe?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No; it goes directly south now, I think, to Brazil almost every time. You will find that covered in the Postmaster General's reports.

The CHAIRMAN. How much have you stated has been expended by the Federal Government in the improvement of our waterways and the construction and operation of canals other than the Panama Canal!

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I had that statement in my reports a couple I do not remember what it is just now.

of years ago.

The CHAIRMAN. It is a little short of $800,000,000, I think.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I could not say. I could tell in a moment$527,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. No.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Those figures are taken from the digest of appropriations of that time.

The CHAIRMAN. What year was that?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. June 30, 1911, the report is, so I think the figures covered to June, 1910.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not a fact, Judge Alexander, that your committee reported the total amount expended exceeded $740,000,000, or thereabouts?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I think it was about that.

The CHAIRMAN. That does not embrace the $150,000,000 or $200,000,000 expended by the State of New York on its canals, making a total of about $1,000,000,000. I simply asked that as a preliminary to this other question, which I think you have answered before, but I want to be clear about it. It has never been the policy of the Government heretofore to impose any tax or toll on American vessels using the waterways or canals of the United States, is that

not correct?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Some time ago I said they imposed a tonnage tax during the Civil War.

The CHAIRMAN. With the exception of that charge?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is the only one I can recall.

The CHAIRMAN. They are not imposing it now on American vessels using the various canals and waterways of the country?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Not to my knowledge. In fact, there is a statute against it.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; passed in 1884?

Senator SIMMONS. Is it not a fact that the vessels of all the world can use these waterways that we have spent this money in improving upon equal terms with the vessels of the United States?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Absolutely a fact.

Senator SIMMONS. There is no discrimination against the vessels. upon our domestic waters?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That policy is 100 years old.

The CHAIRMAN. What policy are you speaking of?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Of nondiscrimination.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you alluding to the reciprocal rights between the various nations in the various ports and harbors?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Which means that under our treaty, for instance, of 1815 with Great Britain, that we accord to the 4,000 or 5,000 ships flying the British flag all the privileges and rights of our American harbors and ports and in return for all of that Great Britain will extend the same privilege to our five ships flying the American flag on the Atlantic. That is the reciprocity?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is the general policy.
Senator THOMAS. The general policy?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The general maritime policy of the world and

has been.

Senator SIMMONS. If you should regard this canal as a domestic canal and put it upon parity with these rivers and harbors we have improved at the cost of millions of dollars, and you should let American ships through free and charge European shops a toll of $1.25 a ton, would we not be reversing with reference to the canal the policy we have always pursued with reference to our domestic waterways? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes; it would be absolutely different.

Senator WALSH. You do not desire us to understand, do you, that the Government has pursued exactly the same policy with reference to the coastwise shipping as it has with reference to the over-seas trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. By coastwise shipping

Senator WALSH. It has always been favored, has it not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. It has been exclusively our own.
Senator WALSH. It has had a monopoly?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. It has been an American monopoly, if you choose to put it that way.

Senator WALSH. Furthermore, there has been a fall in the matter of tonnage since the beginning of the Government, has there not? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. You mean tonnage charges?

Senator WALSH. Tonnage charges?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, sir.

Senator WALSH. There was a discrimination from the very outset in favor of it, was there not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes; if you can say that in confining it to Americans is a discrimination, it is an absolute separation. They are two different things.

Senator WALSH. The tonnage of foreign vessels was originally 50 cents and on American vessels 6 cents, was it not, under the act of 1789 ?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes.

Senator WALSH. So that in that respect the policy had not been to treat foreign ships exactly the same as our own with reference to the entry to American ports?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The policy of reciprocity --the reciprocal maritime policy was not simultaneous with the establishment of the Government. It began about 1815.

Senator SIMMONS. At present and during 100 years, excepting the period during the Civil War, foreign ships could not use our domestic waterways for anything except foreign-trade commerce. It will not be able to use our canal, or rather the Panama Canal, for any other trade except foreign trade, is that not true?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is true, as I understand it.

Senator PAGE. We are not permitted to use the British Columbia Canal from Victoria to Vancouver, 30 miles, except we pay for a single passenger in case of emergency a fine of $200. Is not that the price they impose?

I

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. They impose fines for carrying passengers coastwise rather larger than ours. The principle is the same. think their fine is $500, and ours $200 is my recollection.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chamberlain, are British coastwise vessels accorded any preferential rights in British harbors as compared with other ships-American ships or French or German ships?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I never heard of an American ship in coastwise trade with Great Britain. It is open to them; it is open to vessels of all nations.

The CHAIRMAN. What I mean and what I would like to have your answer on is this: Are higher harbor rates charged an American or French vessel in the ports of Great Britain than will be charged to a British vessel, whether engaged in the British coastwise or in the foreign trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The British harbor dues in some of the same ports are on a variable basis. They charge-for example, in Bristol and most of the other ports they have a higher rate for a vessel on a long voyage than they do for a vessel on a short voyage. The CHAIRMAN. Is that the only difference there is?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. But that, you see, is not inherently a discrimination based on the flag for this reason, that Great Britain is exceptional in this respect. The coasting trade of the United Kingdom is opened unreservedly without any conditions to vessels of all nations. That is the only nation of the world of which that is true. The CHAIRMAN. When was that policy inaugurated?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Some time in the fifties.

The CHAIRMAN. My impression is that it was in 1856. Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I think very likely about that time. In that particular, you see, it is not a difference based on the flag, but on the length of the journey, upon the waters that the ship traverses.

Senator REED. This report from which a portion has been readthe report of 1911-is that before the committee? Is that in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. What is it?

Senator REED. The report of the Commissioner of Navigation. Is that part of it in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. Only those parts that have been embraced within the questions.

Senator CHILTON. I should like for the witness to read into the record the clause that I have marked thereon, page 8.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (reading):

Our traditional method of raising revenue handicaps our shipping as compared with foreign shipping. Conditions are necessarily such that the incidence of a high protective tariff rests more on American shipbuilding and American navigation than on other industries. The effect of the tariff in this respect has been exaggerated at times, but the statement is true to the extent that no American tariff has ever been framed from which American navigation, from its very nature, could derive any positive benefit, while every tariff, to a greater or less extent, indirectly has put some burdens on the industry.

It is not questioned that the traffic of the Panama Canal should supply revenue for its maintenance and possibly in time for the partial amortization of the expense incurred in construction. Toward this revenue we must ourselves contribute in some way, for even if our treaty obligations will permit us to impose upon foreign nations the entire burden of paying for the canal, not for an instant would there be the disposition to adopt so ungracious a policy or, in fact, could it be commercially

feasible.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Chamberlain, I have seen it estimated for the year 1915 that the coastwise trade likely to pass through the

canal would amount to something like a million tons. I should like to ask you in that connection what is the tonnage capacity of our boats engaged in commerce upon the Great Lakes and what amount of tonnage do they annually carry?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The total number of vessels on the Great Lakes is 3,447.

Senator SIMMONS. American, you mean?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I am talking of American boats exclusively. The total tonnage is 2,939,798. That is the tonnage of the ships. In speaking of the canal figures that you have in mind, counting the repeated voyages of the same ship going to and fro, one ship, that is, 100,000 tons may equalize if they make 10 voyages.

Senator SIMMONS. Do not your books show the amount of tonnage carried by those ships in carrying merchandise?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. This does not, but the returns of the Engineer Corps will show the traffic that goes through the Suez Canal. Senator SIMMONS. That is somewhere around 40,000,000?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I should think it was a very large figure. Senator SIMMONS. American capital has supplied the demand of that tonnage as it has-

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. There is no better cargo fleet in the world, it is generally recognized, than the one on the Great Lakes.

Senator SIMMONS. Does that commerce have any advantage for investment in ships over our coastwise trade to the Panama Canal?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. They have great advantages on the Great Lakes for shipping for these reasons, that they have the material to build their ships, the coal is near, the ore is near, and they have the greatest possible advantages for building ships there. In fact, they can build ships there as cheaply, I venture to say, as they can anywhere, the type of ship which they build, which is not quite inherently so expensive as the ocean-going ships, for reasons that I need not go into. In addition they are free from foreign competition on the Lakes on account of the length of the Welland Canal locks; you can not get a ship of very large size through the Welland Canal. All of those things must be considered.

Senator SIMMONS. Would they not be free from any competition, excepting domestic competition, in our coastwise trade? They have domestic competition there?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. They have nothing but domestic competition in our coastwise trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, that is true.

Senator SIMMONS. Have you any reason to believe that American capital will be any slower in providing the necessary ships to accommodate the coastwise trade after the canal is opened than there was to accommodate the same kind of traffic upon the Great Lakes?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Not so far as legislation relating strictly to the canal is concerned. There is the possibility, as I suggested earlier, of apprehension on account of the modification of the coasting laws, or anything of that kind.

Senator SIMMONS. I am speaking about the laws as they now exist.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No, sir.