[*] "Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated by Henry Reeve, Esquire. Edited with notes by Prof. Francis Owen, of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1863, Vol. 1, p. 648 to 552.
To a reader of the present day, these words, albeit they were written nearly a hundred years ago, seem to have been almost inspired by superhuman wisdom, so accurately do they describe the present position of the United States as a maritime power; but if any American could have read them about the time of the "Battle of the Swash," they would have seemed either to convey the severest sarcasm of which human speech is capable, or else to have been the wild and unmeaning utterances of drivelling idiocy. For at this time, thanks to English privateers, and American stupidity and indifference, the American flag had practically disappeared from the ocean.
As has been already mentioned, English shipowners and manufacturers were suffering severely from American competition; they therefore hailed the possible or probable dismemberment of the American Union with delight, and immediately upon the outbreak of the "War of the Rebellion," determined to aid the seceding States in every possible way. These States were exclusively agricultural communities, raising most of the cotton which formed such an important portion of the raw material required by English factories. Like all partially developed agricultural communities, they had no capital to invest in vessels or factories; and in case they secured their independence, they were pledged to Free Trade, and would thus offer a vast and profitable carrying trade to English ships; and a vast and profitable market for English goods. The temptation was a great one; too great in fact to be resisted; and a short time after the commencement of the war, a number of so-called "Confederate cruisers," which had been built and fitted out in English ports with English money, were scouring the ocean, capturing and destroying American merchant vessels wherever they could find them, and compelling the transfer of such as were not destroyed, to the protection of some neutral flag. As our ancestors were at that time engaged in a life and death struggle to maintain their national existence, they could only protest against this selfish and unfriendly action of England; but the guilt of the latter power was practically conceded at an arbitration conference held at Geneva several years later, at which the sum of $15,000,000 was awarded as damages to be paid by England for the depredations committed by these piratical cruisers upon American commerce. The mischief, however, was done; our ocean commerce had been ruined; and England could well have afforded to pay $15,000,000 annually for having thus paralyzed her great maritime rival.
Concurrently with this wiping out of our shipping by English cruisers, iron and steel began to be used as a substitute for wood in ship building; and by the time that the rebellion had been finally crushed, our shipbuilders found themselves utterly unable to compete with those of Great Britain on account of the greater cost of materials and wages here, as well as the absence of machinery and appliances for building iron and steel vessels. Gold remained at a premium for several years after the conclusion of the war; and this, together with the tariff on imported materials required in ship building, rendered competition with foreign builders absolutely impossible. To make matters worse, all the principal maritime nations of Europe inaugurated a system of subsidies or bounties, which stimulated shipbuilding enormously, and increased the supply of vessels so rapidly, that carrying rates fell to figures, with which unsubsidized vessels could not possibly compete. England, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and finally Spain, went into the subsidy business; and the latter power actually subsidized lines of steamers to the extent of over $1,000,000 per annum, to run along our whole Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, trading between Mexico and Central America on the south, and Canada and British Columbia on the north, and stopping at all important American ports on their respective routes.
The only demand for American built vessels was for the coasting trade; but this demand was sufficient to induce the establishment of several large iron shipyards, most of which were located on the Delaware River, at or near Philadelphia, Chester, and Wilmington.
Thus was inaugurated that interest which has since attained such enormous proportions, as to give to the Delaware River the sobriquet of "The American Clyde."
The vessels built at these yards, even in those early days, proved conclusively that American shipbuilders were still the best in the world, and then as now, American coastwise steamships were conceded to be the finest and fleetest and best vessels of their class afloat. The absolute refusal of Congress to offer any subsidy, or even to offer decent compensation to American vessels for carrying the mails to foreign countries, effectually prevented the building of any ships suitable for that trade; and while England and France and Germany and Spain were building swift merchant steamers on plans approved by their naval departments, and paying them liberal annual subsidies for the privilege of chartering or purchasing them at a fixed price, at any time, and converting them into aimed cruisers; thus providing themselves at a comparatively trifling cost with a most formidable and efficient auxiliary naval force; the Congress of the United States, with an apathy or indifference which seems utterly unaccountable at the present time, absolutely refused to do anything to encourage the rebuilding of the American Merchant Marine.
That such a suicidal policy should have been persisted in for more than twenty years after the close of the war, at a time when the annual receipts of the Treasury were over $100,000,000 in excess of the government requirements, and when the extraordinary spectacle was presented day after day, of senators and members of Congress, wrangling and arguing over the question of "how to dispose of the surplus," seems absolutely incredible; and yet, a perusal of the files of the newspapers published during this period, (say from 1875 to 1888) will satisfy the most skeptical reader that it is strictly true. For the convenience and satisfaction of such of my readers as may not be able easily to refer to these files, I reproduce a few articles and communications from some of the journals of that period.
SUBSIDIES TO BRITISH STEAMSHIPS—ARRANGEMENTS
WITH THE WHITE STAR AND CUNARD LINES.
From the New York Journal of Commerce, March 31, 1887.