“This is the existing condition of the ship-owning and ship-building interests of the United States.
“The resulting fact is that the enormous revenue represented by the freight and passenger tolls on our commerce and travel is constantly drained out of this country into British, German, and French pockets, in the order named, but mainly British; while the vast industrial increment represented by the necessary ship-building inures almost wholly to Great Britain.
“For this drain there is no recompense. It is sheer loss. It is the principal cause of our existing financial condition.
“So long as this drain continues, no tariff and no monetary policy can restore the national prosperity.
“Until we make some provision to keep at home some part at least of the three hundred and odd millions annually sucked out of this country by foreign ship-owners and ship-builders, no other legislation can bring good times back again.
“It is a constant stream of gold always flowing out.
“The foreign ship-owner who carries our over-sea commerce makes us pay the freight both ways.
“For our exports we get the foreign market price less the freight.
“For our imports we pay the foreign market price plus the freight.
“No fine-spun theory of any cloistered or collegiate doctrinaire can wipe out these facts.