During the past twenty years only two steamships have been built in the United States for the transatlantic trade and only four for the transpacific trade are in operation. An examination of the conditions under which these six steamships were built will show that the registry law in no way contributed to their construction, which was, however, aided by other legislation, giving the substance, instead of the shadow, of encouragement to American shipbuilding. Those two splendid evidences of American workmanship and enterprise, the St. Louis and St. Paul, which made their initial voyages during the current calendar year, were built under two conditions of law created especially for them. The first was the "postal subsidy act," popularly so called, approved March 3, 1891, which granted the most liberal compensation for carrying the ocean mails now paid by any nation. The second was the repeal of the registry law, so far as the American-owned, Britishbuilt steamships New York and Paris were concerned, to permit the establishment of an express mail service across the Atlantic under the American flag.

The postal-subsidy act of 1891 did nothing to promote the building of 20-knot steamships until it was supplemented a year later by the partial and temporary repeal of the registry law. Thus the registry law, so far from aiding in the construction of the St. Louis and St. Paul, proved an obstacle, which had to be removed before their keels were laid. The Peru, City of New York (since wrecked), and City of Rio de Janeiro were built for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company under the encouragement of an expected liberal mail contract and entirely apart from any considerations involved in the registry law. The two remaining steamships referred to are the Alameda and Mariposa, built twelve years ago in the expectation of obtaining mail contracts to Australia.

The building of large wooden sailing vessels for long deep-sea voyages has practically ceased the world round. The registry law cannot encourage this class of construction, first, because it has been superseded, and second, because our national advantages still enable us to build this type of vessel more cheaply than it can be built elsewhere, if there were a demand for it.

The law restricting our coasting trade to American vessels is undoubtedly a measure for the encouragement of domestic shipbuilding, which produces large and practical benefits to that industry. It is entirely distinct from the law for the registry of vessels in foreign trade and should not be confused with it. The recommendation made last year, and here renewed, in no manner affects coasting navigation and the interest which supplies it with vessels. While natural conditions and the difficulties in the way of bringing across the Atlantic the types of vessels used in this trade have doubtless done much more than statute law to promote the building of coasting, river, sound, and lake vessels, still it is not proposed to change a law which to an appreciable extent promotes American shipbuilding.

The registry law has done nothing and can do nothing to promote American shipbuilding. It has been powerless to bring purchasers to American shipyards and insufficient to prevent American purchases abroad. It is as impotent to aid the builders of wooden ships in New England as to aid the builders of steel steamships on the Delaware or the Pacific coast. Insistence upon its perpetuation is thus to lead shipbuilders to continue to place their reliance upon a law, the helplessness of which is manifest, and to prevent a direction of their energies and the energies and thought of the lawmaking power toward measures which may prove of real value to this important national interest.

If the law were merely impotent, its right to a place longer upon the statute book need not be challenged. There are many laws unrepealed which have outlived their usefulness or the theories upon which their enactment originally was based. But for a third of a century the registry law has been an active force in causing national humiliation. While it has done nothing to encourage American shipbuilding, it has forced American shipowners to invest their capital under the laws of foreign nations, to resort to the use of alien flags, or to abandon shipowning to competing nations.

It has been stated that the registry law can not determine the market in which vessels designed for the foreign trade will be bought. While only seven steamships for transoceanic trade have been built in the United States within the past twenty years-and these were built here for other reasons than any involved in the registry law-American capital within barely half that time has purchased abroad and now operates under foreign colors in transatlantic or transpacific trade forty or fifty well-known steamships, and if a complete analysis of ownership could be made the list would doubtless be considerably extended.

We have but three steamship companies which maintain regular com. munication with the Old World. Of these the International Navigation Company is our only transatlantic company. Its fleet consists of the St. Louis and St. Paul and four steamships built in this country more than twenty years ago (in all, six American-built vessels), of six foreignbuilt vessels, two of which, the New York and Paris, Congress admitted to American register to facilitate the construction of the St. Louis and St. Paul, the remaining four still flying the British flag, and of nine steamers built abroad and operated under the Belgian flag. Our only line to Asia is the Pacific Mail Line, which in that trade owns three American steamships and one foreign-built. Our only Australian line comprises two American-built vessels, one foreign-built which Congress has admitted to registry, one British, and one Hawaiian steamship. Under the laws of any other nation but the United States these corporations would not only be permitted to use the national flag for all their vessels, but in the case of some nations substantial inducements would be afforded to encourage the use of the national flag. Our practice, established by law, is precisely the reverse. The law puts a ban upon the use of the Stars and Stripes, and, having no alternative, Americans, willing to embark in maritime ventures and finding it necessary, in order to compete with foreign rivals, to buy vessels as cheaply as their competitors, must resort to the flag and protection of Great Britain, Belgium, Norway, and even of Hawaii, last born among republics.

The practice of those engaged in navigation for the purposes of legitimate profit is most valuable evidence to those engaged in the improvement of laws. The managers of our three American transoceanic steamship lines presumably are as loyal and patriotic Americans as those who make or enforce the laws which govern them. Self-interest has forced them to buy steamships abroad, because steamships can be obtained there on more advantageous terms than at home. There can be no other reason. It is sometimes argued that the cost of operation and especially the factor of the difference in wages of seamen prevents navigation under the American flag. Some attention in detail was paid to that claim in the report of the Bureau last year; but, without covering ground already traversed, it will be sufficient to direct notice to the fact that if cost of operation, instead of first cost of construction, were the difficulty with which American shipowners have to contend, we should meet with frequent cases of American-built steamships transferred to foreign flags and operated under those flags by American owners. Such is not infrequently the case with British vessels transferred to the Norwegian flag. But there are no such instances of American-built vessels transferred to foreign flags, while there are many instances of foreign-built vessels bought abroad by Americans. Cost of construction determines the market in which American shipowners buy their steamships, and under present conditions it is to be regretted that the margin of business advantage, in obedience to which our owners make their purchases, is in favor of foreign yards.

An act of Congress, the registry law, determines the flag and nationality of many vessels owned in truth by American shipowners, and it is to be regretted that the law determines flag and nationality in favor of foreign nations instead of in favor of the United States.

The cost of construction can not appreciably be changed by statute law. For its reduction we must await the normal development of our resources. Flag and nationality can be determined by Congress whenever it so elects, and the removal in whole or part of present restrictions can not fail to increase the American merchant marine.

There is little reason to expect that the American owners of vessels under foreigu flags will petition Congress for a change in the law or for permission to use their own flag, for such a petition would rest chiefly upon sentiment. We not only afford to American vessels in foreign trade no particular privileges, but in some respects we subject our vessels to burdens and annoyances to which the vessels of no other nation are subjected. The removal of some of these burdens and annoyances is suggested in later recommendations of this report. There can be little doubt that American capital invested in a British-built, Belgian, or Norwegian freight steamer will secure as large a profit under the flags of those nations as under the American flag. There is no business reason, therefore, to prompt the American owner to appeal to Congress for an American register unless he wishes to engage in the coasting trade. On the other hand, there can be no doubt, without impeaching the patriotism of men who have in various ways demonstrated their love of country, that Americans owning vessels under foreign flags in foreign trade would prefer to use the Stars and Stripes instead of the foreign emblems which our law forces upon them. Left by the law free to make a choice they would prefer their own flag even with the unnecessary burdens and annoyances accompanying it. But met with expatriation on the first page of our navigation laws and confronted on subsequent pages by laws which all other nations have outgrown, our shipowners, not unnaturally, have made little effort to secure correctional legislation for an interest which meets only frowns under the laws of the United States, only favors under the laws of other nations.

If our voluntary sacrifice of maritime rank were accompanied by any corresponding compensation to some other national industry the sacrifice might be defensible, but, as already indicated, there is no trace of benefit to domestic shipbuilding wrought by the registry law. We own the steamships in transatlantic trade to entitle the United States to rank next to Great Britain and Germany in that trade, but, because the law compels the disguise of a foreign flag over much more than half our steamships in that trade, our North Atlantic merchant steam fleet is outnumbered also by the fleets of France, Belgium, and Holland plying between the United States and Europe.

Of the ten maritime nations owning nine-tenths of the seagoing tonnage of the world the United States and Italy alone have a less carrying capacity than twenty years ago. The method adopted this year by the world's most eminent statistical authorities in estimating the carrying power or potential tonnage of a merchant fleet is to multiply the net tonnage of steam vessels by 4 and add to the product the tonnage of sailing vessels. The greater speed of steam vessels of course increases their carrying power, and to convert steam tonnage into the terms of sail tonnage this carrying power is taken at fourfold the carrying capacity. With this explanation the following table, prepared by the Bureau from the statistics of the Bureau Veritas for the three years named, will show the carrying power of the seagoing vessels of the nations of the world and the percentage of each to the total for each year:

The year 1874-75 is taken as the initial year because more than ten years had then elapsed since the close of the civil war, and thus an ample margin of time is allowed for recuperation from the effects of that disastrous period. In 1874-75 the seagoing carrying power of the United States was easily second to that of Great Britain and greater than that of Germany and France combined. Although our sea power relatively and absolutely was then much greater than now, President Grant five years before had foreseen the opportunity for the development of American navigation and in a special message had urged Congress to pass a free-ship bill. Within the past ten years Germany has outstripped the United States, her net steam tonnage increasing from 414,000 tons in 1885 to 893,000 tons in 1895, equivalent to 3,572,000 tons carrying power, and Norway has passed ahead of France and is rapidly drawing close to the United States.

While our rank is third among nations, it must be borne in mind that we hold this rank, not by virtue of our transoceanic voyages, but through our extensive navigation with the West Indies, Central America, and the Caribbean coasts of South America-voyages which are essentially coastwise, though conducted to foreign ports-and through our enormous tonnage on the Great Lakes.

The complete figures for the last fiscal year are not yet available, but they will not greatly vary from those of the previous year. During 1893-94 the total number of voyages, both going and coming, made between the United States and Europe by American merchant vessels was 252, while vessels under foreign flags made the voyage 10,233 times. Between the United States and Asia the voyage was made 161 times by American and 476 times by foreign vessels; between the United States and Africa, 70 times by American and 274 times by foreign vessels; between the United States and Australia and New Zealand, 60 times by American and 148 times by foreign vessels; and between the United States and Hawaii, 351 times by American and 39 times by foreign vessels.

In the last annual report of the Bureau a table was published showing the existing means of steam communication between the ports of the United States and foreign countries, with the names, year of build, average period of voyage, approximate number of crew, and approximate value of the steamships of all flags regularly so engaged. It disclosed the extent to which foreign nations have assumed control of our carrying trade and partially the extent to which Americans own or charter vessels under foreign flags.

The means of communication, steam and sail, under the American flag between the United States and about fifty of the chief foreign seaports and markets for exports and imports during the last fiscal year are shown in Appendix C. The table is compiled from the returns of United States consuls, who are required to report the arrival and departure of every American vessel. It is thus complete as to the trade in American bottoms at the ports selected. It shows the name of each vessel which entered the port, the rig, tonnage, material, year of build, and port from which she came, together with the number of entries. Attention is invited to the facts it sets forth.

In Appendix D are collated the statements of American consuls, showing the opportunities open for American vessels to meet demands for communication between the ports at which they are stationed and ports of the United States.

From the entire Atlantic coast of the United States only two American vessels last year made the voyage to Liverpool and none made the voyage to Hamburg or Bremen. The only American vessels entering the two great German ports during the year were five wooden sailing vessels, built between 1875 and 1884, with crews, all told, of about 150 men.

The satisfactory demonstration of our naval power at Kiel contrasts pointedly both here and abroad with the showing made by our merchant marine in German ports. It raises the question whether early removal of the causes in law which hamper our merchant marine is not now essential, not only to trade and commerce, but even to our military power on the sea, which has of late years received such full and generous consideration from Congress. The most eminent writer of the generation upon naval subjects, speaking of our new navy, says:

Can this navy be had without restoring the merchant shipping? It is doubtful. History has proved that such a purely military sea power can be built up by a despot, as was done by Louis XIV; but though so fair seeming, experience showed that his navy was like a growth which, having no root, soon withers away. But in a representative government any military expenditure must have a strongly represented interest behind it, convinced of its necessity. How such a merchant shipping should be built up, whether by subsidies or free trade, by constant administration of tonics or by free movement in the open air, is not a military but an economical question. (Influence of Sea Power upon History, Capt. A. T. Mahan, U. S. N., p. 87.)

Free registry and subsidies are not alternative or conflicting propositions, but, as was indicated in the last report of the Bureau, are independent methods of dealing with two different subjects. The registry law is without effect on shipbuilding, but it obstructs navigation. Other maritime nations have recognized this fact, and, without exсерtion, have abandoned laws which forbade the national flag to foreignbuilt vessels. Those which have undertaken to stimulate shipbuilding by legislation have resorted to direct cash payments from the public funds in the form of bounties for domestic construction, bounties for

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