Practically, nothing has since been done to recover the lost ground. Provision was made by Congress for the admission of certain ship-building materials free of duty. This somewhat improved the prospects and stimulated the construction of sailing vessels; but the competition in the world's carrying-trade is in steam-vessels. Great Britain had for many years covered the ocean with subsidized steamers, paying heavily for mail service until the lines were self-supporting, and withdrawing her aid only when competition could be safely defied. Congress steadily refused to enter upon any system of the same kind. Fitful aid was granted to special lines here and there, but no general system was devised, and the aid extended being temporary and accompanied sometimes by scandals in legislation was in the end rather hurtful than helpful.
Meanwhile the products we were exporting and importing enlarged so rapidly that we were giving more cargoes to ships than any other nation of the world,—furnishing in the year 1879 between thirteen and fourteen million tons of freight, and this altogether exclusive of our coasting trade. Some very extreme cases occurred, strikingly illustrative of the reluctance of Congress to help the American carrying trade. It was shown by statistics that we were exporting to Brazil not over $7,000,000 of our own products, and taking from her over $40,000,000 of her products. We had no steam communication with Rio Janeiro, except by way of Europe. In 1876 the Emperor of Brazil, an able and enlightened monarch, visited the United States. As a result of his inquiries and examinations His Majesty expressed a sincere desire for closer commercial connections between the two countries, and eagerly spoke of his willingness to contribute by an annual bounty to the establishment of a line of steamers.
After the Emperor's return to his dominions John Roach (a native of Ireland, but long naturalized in the United States), an energetic and capable ship-builder, of unusual foresight, energy, and integrity of purpose, sent an agent to Rio Janeiro, and procured a contract from the Brazilian Government pledging $125,000 per annum, provided the Government of the United States would give the same amount, for the establishment of a steam line between the two countries. Not doubting the readiness of the American Government to respond, Mr. Roach proceeded with full confidence, and built vessels for the line in his own shipyard. The enterprise promised the best commercial results; but to his chagrin and discomfiture, Mr. Roach found that no amount of argument or appeal by those who were willing to speak for him could induce Congress to contribute a single dollar for the encouragement of the line. Brazil cancelled her offer when the United States refused to join with her. Mr. Roach's ships were withdrawn, and the line was surrendered to an inferior class of English steamers.
During the period of this futile experiment, as well as before and afterwards, Congress annually appropriated more than a million dollars for the maintenance of the South-American squadron of naval vessels, to protect a commerce that did not exist, and for the creation of which the United-States Government was unwilling to pay even ten per cent of the cost annually of maintaining the squadron. Every intelligent man knows that it is impossible to maintain a navy unless there be a commercial marine for the education of sailors. The American marine preceding 1861 was so large that it could furnish seventy-six thousand sailors to maintain a blockading squadron on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The value of this school for seamen, as one of the arms for National defense, could not have been more strikingly illustrated, or more completely proved. The lesson should have been heeded. It is a familiar adage requiring no enforcement of argument, that navies do not grow at the top. They grow from and out of a commercial marine that educates men for sea service. If the Government of the United States had, since the close of the war, expended annually upon the mercantile marine one-fifth of the amount that has been expended upon the Navy, our ships would have covered every sea, and the Navy would have grown of itself. Instead of that, we have been constructing the navy as an exotic, forcing it to grow without a favoring atmosphere, establishing it with officers and not with men, educating cadets on land, and not educating sailors on the ocean.
The Democratic party in Congress was hostile to every movement for the encouragement of our carrying trade, and the Republican party was fatally divided. The men who had earnestly attempted to do something were therefore constantly defeated and compelled to abandon the effort. Following this came the demand for the ships, which meant simply that American capitalists might secure the registry of the United States for vessels built in English ship-yards and manned with English sailors. This is the last movement necessary to complete the dominion of Great Britain over the sea, to complete the humiliation of the United States as a commercial country. It would abolish the art of ship-building on this side of the Atlantic, would educate no American sailor, except in the coasting trade. As a result, our naval vessels, if a Navy should be maintained, would necessarily be constructed where the merchant vessels were constructed; and the last point of absurdity in this policy would be reached when, in case of possible conflict with a European Power, we should be dependent for naval vessels upon a foreign country from which we could be cut off by the superior strength of our opponent on the sea.
With a more extended frontage on the two great oceans of the world than any other nation; with a larger freightage than that of any other nation, it will be a reproach to the United States, more pointed and decisive every year, if it neglects to establish a policy which shall develop a mercantile marine, and as the outgrowth of the mercantile marine, a Navy adequate to all the wants of the Republic. If Congress, in the sixteen years following the war, had given a tithe of encouragement to the building and sailing of ships, that it has wisely given to manufactures, to the construction of railways, and to every industrial pursuit on land, our flag would before the close of that period have stood relatively on the ocean as strong and permanent as it stood before steam was applied to the carrying trade of the world. In those sixteen years the Government expended more than three hundred millions on the Navy!(4) It expended scarcely three millions to aid in building up its mercantile marine, and expended much of that unwisely.
[(1) The Louisiana Commission was composed as follows:
General Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut, Judge Charles B. Lawrence of
Ohio, General John M. Harlan of Kentucky, Ex-Governor John C. Brown of
Tennessee, Hon. Wayne McVeagh of Pennsylvania.]
[(2) The International Monetary Conference for which provision was made in the bill was held at Paris in the autumn of 1878. The American Commissioners were Reuben K. Fenton, William S. Groesbeck, and Francis A. Walker, with S. Dana Horton as Secretary. The principal European Nations were present with the exception of Germany. The Commissioners receive the impression that decided progress had been made towards the remonetization of silver in Europe, but subsequent event have not vindicated their judgment. Mr. Goschen, who was the head of the British delegation, declared that "it would be a misfortune for the world if a movement for a sole gold standard should succeed;" but he indicated no purpose on the part of his own government to change from the gold standard. The Conference came to no practical conclusion, simply agreeing that "it is necessary to maintain in the world the monetary functions of silver as well as those of gold;" but that "the selection for use of one or the other of the two metals, or both simultaneously, should be governed by the special position of each State or group of States." The proposition of the United States "that the delegations recommend to their respective governments the adjustment of a fixed relation between the two metals and the use of both in that relation as unlimited legal-tender money," was rejected. The supporters of a bi-metallic standard, though disappointed in the immediate result of the Conference, received encouragement from the advance in International opinion in the years that had elapsed since the previous Conference (1867). At that time the Nations declared almost unanimously in favor of a single standard of gold. Many of them had found in the interval great difficulty in maintaining it and were withheld from declaring for the double standard simply by the influence and example of England.]
[(3) The following tables have been prepared with care by Hon. A. Loudon Snowden, the able superintendent for several years of the United States Mint at Philadelphia.