Ships are but the tools of commerce, and if we have not the tools we cannot do the work. Foreign mechanics cannot sell us these tools; our own mechanics cannot provide them; therefore the workmen of the sea are idle.
If one of Mr. Roach's theories is correct, if he can build steamships cheaper and better than those we desire to buy, why does he object to the introduction of an article that can do him no harm? If the other is true, and undoubtedly it is, that he cannot build the ships that are needed without the aid of a bounty or a subsidy, what then? Manifestly, unless the prohibition to purchase such ships is removed, it being the duty of Congress to protect the individual interests of Mr. Roach and his confreres by subsidies, equal justice demands that every person as well as every company who is forced to come to them for ships, should be subsidized to
the extent of the difference of the cost of a ship in the United States, and that in the country where they are most advantageously built, and this difference is at least twenty-five per cent. Call it rather more or rather less as we please, but a vast difference is on all hands acknowledged, and the fact of our non-production proves it. The shipbuilders have already had exceptional legislation by a considerable remission of duties in their favor. But it is not enough.
In order to compete successfully with foreigners, they should obtain the repeal of all duties which make their daily life so much more expensive to them than it is to their fellow craftsmen in Scotland. But having already more protection than any other class of mechanics, they have scarcely the presumption to demand any partiality to that extent. Another, and a more forcible reason for their lack of success is that there has been no competition in the importation of ships to stir them to exertion. Had there been, the first difficulty might more readily be overcome. The illustration used by Mr. Frothingham already given, applies with greater force to ship building than to any other industry. The importation of ships is absolutely prohibited, whereas that of all other articles is either free or accompanied by a duty. And it is worthy of notice that the smaller the duty on whatever is introduced, the greater is the constantly improving skill of our domestic manufacturers in its production.
As an argument against free ships, opponents of the measure a few years since circulated and placed on the desks of members of Congress, a lithographed drawing. It represented among other things the destruction of our vessels
by the Alabama, and a personal caricature, the compliment of which it does not become me to more than acknowledge. Its chief ground was occupied by starving mechanics, standing listlessly around deserted ship-yards and machine-shops.
There was some truth in this part of the picture. There was no reason why mechanics should starve at that time when a common laborer obtained from two to three dollars per day for his work, but there was a reason for the abandonment of wooden ship-yards and old-fashioned machine-shops.
Wooden ships were no longer in demand at home or abroad, and the world had discovered better machinery to propel better ships. As an offset to this pictorial argument, another might have been introduced, exhibiting in the background the mere blacksmiths' shops of the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, as they existed before the era of iron steamship building, and in the front the subsequent appearance of great workshops and foundries, first built for the purpose of keeping in repair the fleet of steamships bought by unhampered Germans to do our American carrying trade, and afterwards kept in more active employment, by the ability their workmen have since acquired to supply their home market with steamers of their own construction.
The advocates of subsidies have committed a grievous error in arguing that postal contracts, given to one or more steamship companies, will tend to a revival of shipbuilding for public benefit. It is evident, on the contrary, that those ships, a part of whose cost is defrayed by National bounty, would
be run as monopolies against individuals who have no such charitable aid. A subsidy given for the protection or the assistance of shipbuilders is a downright robbery of the people's purse. There can be no question about the propriety of giving a proper compensation to steamship companies who carry the mails. They ought to be paid as liberally as railroad or stage-coach companies, according to the miles they traverse and the difficulties they surmount. Their true policy is first to advocate a measure whereby they can be supplied with the best ships for their purposes in the cheapest markets of the world, not only because in ordinary traffic they can thus better compete with rivals under foreign flags, but because they can better afford to accept a moderate compensation from our government for carrying its mails.