1.These managers of foreign lines proceeded systematically. Whatever may have been the activity of their competition for the carrying trade of the United States, they were unanimous in their determination to prevent the growth of an American merchant marine. Acting under the guise of a pretended business combine, which, for convenience, they termed “The North Atlantic Traffic Association,” they raised funds, hired lobbyists,—among whom appeared ex-officials of positions as high as the Cabinet,—and by every possible means known to modern ingenuity thwarted every effort of those favoring American interests, both in and out of Congress. This combination has no reason for existence except that of organized and systematic lobbying against American interests in the corridors and committee rooms of the American Congress.
1.These managers of foreign lines proceeded systematically. Whatever may have been the activity of their competition for the carrying trade of the United States, they were unanimous in their determination to prevent the growth of an American merchant marine. Acting under the guise of a pretended business combine, which, for convenience, they termed “The North Atlantic Traffic Association,” they raised funds, hired lobbyists,—among whom appeared ex-officials of positions as high as the Cabinet,—and by every possible means known to modern ingenuity thwarted every effort of those favoring American interests, both in and out of Congress. This combination has no reason for existence except that of organized and systematic lobbying against American interests in the corridors and committee rooms of the American Congress.
A similar measure was brought forward again in the Congress elected with President McKinley in 1896, and the bill passed the Senate, again to meet the same fate as its predecessor in a Republican House of Representatives with a thorough working majority, notwithstanding that the policy of aid to American shipping had been a cardinal plank in the platform of that year, upon which that House had been elected. The defection was almost wholly among Western Republicans.
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During the contest over the bill in the Congress under consideration, the tactics of the foreign steamship owners and managers, personally as well as through their hired agents, were a disgrace to the good name of American legislation. They threw off all disguise and openly lobbied on the floors and in the corridors and committee rooms of the House to prevent consideration of the bill. In that Congress there was every prospect that if the Senate Billcould be brought up for consideration it would pass with some trifling amendments, which could easily be adjusted in conference committee. The whole strategy of the alien shipping interests was to prevent consideration, which they ultimately succeeded in doing by working upon the susceptibility or the apprehensions of certain Republicans from the far Western States.
In 1898, the tonnage bounty bill in a modified form was brought forward again; this time with a limitation of the amount to be expended under its provisions in any one fiscal year to nine millions of dollars, but it met the same kind of opposition that had beaten its two predecessors, and it shared their fate, passing the Senate and being denied consideration in the House.
Finally, in the Congress elected in 1900 and assembling in 1901, a tonnage bill still further modified was brought forward and passed the Senate. For a time it was believed that the alien ship-owners and managers would not be able to beat this bill as they had its predecessors, and strong hopes were indulged by its friends that it would receive consideration in the House. Even up to the last few weeks of the closing session of the Fifty-seventh Congress which expired March 3, 1903, the Chairmanof the Committee on Merchant Marine and other advocates and friends of the bill believed that they would be able to get a rule for its consideration even at the last moment. But that hope, like all the others, passed away.
To go back a little, it may be worth while to remark here that the national misfortune did not even end with the failure of these bills, and the consequent continued depression or paralysis of the American foreign carrying trade. There was from time to time sufficient prospect, or at least possibility, of the passage of a practical and effective law for the aid and encouragement of American shipping to induce the investment of a large amount of capital by sanguine persons in new ship-building plants of considerable magnitude, whereby the trade as it stood was not only greatly overdone, but the skilled ship-building labor of the country was overdrawn. There seemed to be a theory that plenty of money to invest in plant or to sink in unprofitable enterprises could be depended on to make up for the lack of experience in the management of shipyards and want of skill in ship-building labor. The result was disastrous not only to the investors in the stock and bonds of the new shipyards, but also to the entire ship-building industry, as it hadbeen developed on a practical and legitimate basis.
With the final failure of all legislation to promote American commerce in the foreign carrying trade, there was no resource left for either the new shipyards or the old except such work as the coastwise trade might provide and the construction of naval vessels. As for the coastwise trade, it was already well provided with new and highly serviceable steamships likely to fill the demands of the traffic for several years to come, so that little or no new work could be expected from that quarter.
The naval programme did not in any year put forward as many ships as there were ship-yards. The government itself seemed to adopt the policy of fostering and promoting the new shipyards at the expense of the old, whereby the former were overloaded with work which they could not do, and they invariably became so hopelessly delinquent as to make the time clause of the contracts an utter farce. New shipyards, which had never completed a ship of any description, were loaded with 15,000 and 16,000-ton battleships of the most complex and difficult construction, requiring the highest skill and the most approved experience in every respect to carry on the work required for their completion.
It is not necessary to particularize further on this point, except to say that very large and important vessels, awarded to new and inexperienced concerns with a contract time for completion of three years, could not by any possibility be finished inside of six or seven. So the question naturally has arisen as to whether, in the formulation of its ship-building programmes or in its output of awards to contractors, the government really desires to augment its naval force in the shortest possible time or to figure as a good Samaritan toward new, inexperienced, unskilled, and needy shipyards, owners, and managers. Such a policy is based upon the fundamental error that what is called “plant” makes a shipyard. The real shipyard is not merely ground, waterfront, buildings, and machinery, commonly called plant; but with a thoroughly organizedpersonnelin staff and working-men; with a generation or more of training and experience behind them. That is a complete shipyard. So far as mere plant is concerned, the size of a new shipyard or the amount of money spent on it cannot create a range of capabilities. The indispensable and over-ruling requisite is the trained staff and trained men that are in it. The lay-out of land, buildings, and machinery is but a small factor in the operation of aneffective shipyard. Another thing to be primarily considered is that there are no enterprises of industrial, railroad, or mining interest that can be compared with a large modern shipyard for intricacy of professional and mechanical subdivisions in its organization.
Every handicraft or mechanical pursuit is to be found in such a shipyard or closely correlated with and contributory to it. The grouping of these diverse elements into a harmonious working whole needs the hand not only of a master, but a master of long continuous training; and in the adjustment of the various parts of the group, it is time, experience, and knowledge of the men composing it which are indispensable.
Returning now to the main theme, it seems proper to explain what the real bone of contention is in this struggle between the impulse of American patriotism and the greed of foreign ship-owners. It all goes back to the fundamental navigation laws of the United States which prohibit the registry of any foreign built ship under the American flag except in certain cases provided by law, which are not sufficiently numerous to be formidable.
In their warfare against government aid and encouragement to American shipping, the foreignship-owners and ship-builders have not met the issue squarely or fairly face to face. They have invariably resorted to a subterfuge which is commonly known as the doctrine of free ships, the meaning and significance of which are not understood by the general public, and its consequences are realized most imperfectly, if at all.
The phrase viewed as a glittering generality is seductive, and it is regarded by many people as a mere proposition to enable American ship-owners to buy their ships where they can get them the cheapest, as the saying is. It is a curious fact that, with all the learning and the so-called logic of political economists, they have never yet, from Adam Smith down, clearly defined to us what really constitutes cheapness in all its elements, or what constitutes the reverse, or costliness. A mere difference in dollars and cents for a given thing to perform a certain work by no means expresses the difference. It may, and often does in fact, befog or confuse the mind. A bad or poorly constructed thing may be called cheap, and a good, well-constructed thing may be termed costly, measured by dollars and cents, and yet practically, in view of efficiency, durability, and all the other elements of desirability, the so-called costly thing may be actually cheaperthan the so-called cheap thing, both being intended for the same purpose.
A free ship law, or the repeal of our existing navigation laws, would unquestionably load our registry with ships cheap in dollars and cents, but they would prove dear in everything else. In order to do what lay in his power to correct these misapprehensions and clear away this fog of ignorance on that particular subject, Mr. Cramp, in theNorth American Reviewfor April, 1894, printed a paper entitled “Our Navigation Laws.”
In the course of this paper he called attention to certain facts of permanent historical value which there seemed a tendency to forget or ignore:
“At the time of the Franco-German War of 1870-71, even so sturdy a patriot as General Grant, then President, was persuaded for a time that it would be a good thing for our commerce, as a neutral nation, to permit American registry of foreign-built vessels, the theory being that many vessels of nations which might become involved in the struggle would seek the asylum of our flag.
“Actuated by powerful New York influence, already conspicuously hostile to the American merchant marine, General Grant, in a special message, recommended that Congress enact legislation to that end. This proposition was antagonized by Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania,—always at the front when American interests were threatened,—in one of his most powerful efforts, couched in thevehement eloquence of which he was master, which impressed General Grant so much that he abandoned that policy, and subsequently adhered to the existing system.
“I will not stop here to point out in detail the tremendous political and diplomatic advantage which England would enjoy when dealing with other maritime powers, if she could have always at hand an asylum for the lame ducks of her commercial fleet in time of war. Her ocean greyhounds, that could either escape the enemy’s cruisers or be readily converted into cruisers themselves, might remain under her flag; but all her slow freighters, tramps, and obsolete passenger boats of past eras would be transferred by sham sales to our flag, under which they could pursue their traffic in safety during the war under peace rates of insurance, and without any material diversion of their earnings, which would of course be increased by war freight rates, returning to their former allegiance at the end of the war. The lack of such an asylum amounts to a perpetual bond to keep the peace.
“From the end of the Civil War to about 1880 there was but feeble effort to revive ship-building in this country. All our energies of capital and enterprise, as I have remarked elsewhere, were directed to the extension of railways in every direction, to the repair of the war ravages in the South, to the settlement of the vast territories of the West,—in a word, to purely domestic development, pending which England was by common consent left to enjoy her ocean monopoly.
“Such was the state of affairs in 1883-85, when the adoption of the policy of naval reconstruction offered to American ship-building the first encouragement it had seen in a quarter of a century.
“When we began to build the new navy, every Englishjournal, from theLondon Timesdown, pooh-poohed the idea that a modern man-of-war could be built in an American yard, modern high-powered engines in an American machine-shop, or modern breech-loading cannon in an American forge. Many of the English ship-builders rubbed their hands in actual anticipation of orders from this government for the ships and guns needed; and they blandly assured us that they would give us quite as favorable terms as were accorded to China, Japan, and Chile. And, to their shame be it said, there were officers of our navy who not only adopted this view, but did all they could to commit our government to the pernicious policy.
“In 1885, when Secretary Whitney took control of the Navy Department, the efforts of English ship-builders to secure at least a share of the work were renewed. By this time the English were willing to admit that the hulls of modern ships could be built in the United States; but they were satisfied that our best policy would be to buy the necessary engines, cannon, and armor from them. Secretary Whitney, however, promptly decided that the only article of foreign production which the new navy needed was the plans of vessels for comparison. This was wise, because it placed in the hands of our builders the results of the most mature experience abroad, at comparatively small cost. But one of the earliest and firmest decisions of Mr. Whitney was that our naval vessels, machinery and all, must be built at home and of domestic material.
“The efforts of the English builders to get the engine-work for our new navy were much more serious and formidable than is generally known. A prominent member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs proposed an amendment to a pending naval bill empowering the Secretary at his discretion to contract abroad for the constructionof propelling machinery for our naval ships. The language was, of course, general, but every one knows that the term ‘abroad’ in this sense would be synonymous with Great Britain, and nothing more.
“Mr. Whitney promptly met this proposition with a protest in the shape of a letter to the Naval Committee dated February 27, 1886. He said that, so far as he was concerned, he would not avail himself of such a power if granted. There was no occasion for such power; and it could have no effect except to keep American builders in suspense, and thereby augment the difficulty of obtaining capital for the enlargement of their facilities to meet the national requirements. Mr. Whitney’s protest was so vigorous that the proposition died from its effects in the committee and has been well-nigh forgotten. The proposer himself became satisfied that he had been misled by the representations of naval officers who were under English influence, and did not press his amendment.
“I have brought these facts forward for the purpose of emphasizing my declaration that the promotive influence behind every movement against our navigation laws is of British origin, and whenever you put a pin through a free-ship bill you prick an Englishman.
“The portion of Mr. Whitney’s letter referring to the proposed free-engine clause in the Naval Bill of 1886 was as follows:
“‘I think our true policy is to borrow the ideas of our neighbors as far as they are thought to be in advance of ours, give them to our ship-builders in the shape of plans; and, having this object in view, I have been anxious to acquire detailed drawings of the latest machinery in use abroad, and should feel at liberty to spend more in the same way in getting hold of the latest things as far as possible for the purpose of utilizing them. Wehave made important accumulations in this line during the last six months. I think I ought to say to the committee that I have placed myself in communication with some of the principal marine-engine builders of the country within the last three months for the purpose of conferring with them upon this subject. I detailed two officers of the navy,—a chief engineer and a line officer,—who, under my directions, visited the principal establishments in the East. They recognize that in the matter of engines for naval ships we are quite inexperienced as compared with some other countries. It is this fact, doubtless, which the committee has in view in authorizing the purchase and importation of engines for one of the vessels authorized to be constructed under this act. If the committee will permit me to make the suggestion, I find myself quite satisfied, after consultation with people engaged in the industry in this country, that it would not be necessary for me to avail myself of that discretionary power in order to produce machines of the most advanced character. Our marine-engine builders in general express their inability at the present moment to design the latest and most approved type of engines for naval vessels,—an inability arising from the fact that they have not been called upon to do anything of importance in that line. At the same time, they state that if they are given the necessary time, and are asked to offer designs in competition, they would acquaint themselves with the state of the art abroad and here, and would prepare to offer to the government designs embodying the latest improvements in the art. And they are ready to construct at the present time anything that can be built anywhere else if the plans are furnished. As I find no great difficulty in the way of purchasing plans (in fact, there is an entire readiness to sell to us on the part of the engine-builders abroad), Ithink the solution of the question will be not very difficult, although it may require some time and a little delay.’”
At this writing (1903), only eighteen years have elapsed since the date of Secretary Whitney’s letter. The wisdom of his policy needs no eulogy beyond the history of the development of steam-engineering in the United States during that brief period. In fact, no other eulogy could be a tenth part as eloquent as that history is.
The policy of Secretary Whitney was in fact an echo of the sturdy patriotism that framed the Act of December 31, 1792, dictated by the same impulse of national independence and conceived in the same aspiration of patriotic pride.
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And now, in the face of this record so fresh and recent, the same old demand for English free ships is heard again in our midst, promoted by the same old lobby and pressed on the same old lines. Are we never to hear the last of it? Is there to be a perennial supply of American legislators willing to promote a British industry by destroying an American one? To all history, to all logic, they oppose a single phrase: “Let us buy ships where they are cheapest.” Well, if national independence is valueless, and if everything is to be subordinated to cheapness, why not get our lawsmade in the House of Commons? The members of the House of Commons legislate for nothing. Senators and Representatives charge $5000 a year for their services, besides stationery allowance and mileage. The House of Commons makes laws cheaper than our Congress does. Our ships and our capacity to create them are as much a symbol of independence as our laws are; and if it is good policy to get the former where they are cheapest, why not get the latter on the same terms?
British warfare against American ships and shipping by no means stopped at extravagant subsidies to her own ships; did not stop at determined, and thus far successful, efforts to defeat American legislation of a similar character; did not even stop at vigorous and often corrupt attacks upon our navigation laws through the lobbies of our own Congress.
Of course, all these considerations at this writing (1903) have become ancient history. The iron ship has not only completely dominated British naval architecture, but that of all other European countries, and has established itself on an equally permanent and secure footing in the United States. A few wooden ships are still built in this country, but they are mostly schooners for the coastwise trade, and really cut little or no figure in commercial conditionsoutside of our own coast. Yet, although it be ancient history, viewed in the light of the enormous changes that have occurred in thirty or thirty-five years, still, it is instructive to know the springs and motives of the public statecraft and the private commercial strategy which forced the iron ship in and the wooden ship out. That this was bound to come in the nature of things does not admit of doubt; but it is equally clear that the policy of interested parties forced the situation in favor of British shipping interests, and at the time adversely to those of the United States both as to ship-owning and as to ship-building, which are inseparably interdependent.
In 1897, Mr. Cramp, being prevented by other business from attending a hearing before the Committee on the Merchant Marine on the day set for his appearance, addressed to it a letter, in which, after briefly reviewing the conditions and causes already set forth, he said:
“The interests of ship-owning and ship-building are identical, because no nation can successfully own ships that cannot successfully build them.
“No nation can either own or build ships when, unprotected and unencouraged, if it is brought in competition with other nations that are protected and encouraged.
“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.
“The fact that so long as the freight is paid to a foreign ship-owner, so long will it be a foreign profit on a foreign product, is fundamental and unanswerable.
“The English steamship is a foreign product, and its earnings, which we pay, are a foreign profit.
“No sane man will argue that a foreign profit on a foreign product can be of domestic benefit.
“Add to this the fact, equally important, that the carrier of commerce controls its exchanges, and the conditionof commercial, financial, and industrial subjugation is complete. Such is our condition to-day.
“Great Britain has many outlying colonies and dependencies.
“The greatest two are India and the United States.
“She holds India by force of arms, whereby her control of that country costs her something. She has to pay something for her financial and commercial drainage of India.
“She holds the United States by the folly of its own people, whereby her control of this country costs her nothing. She has to pay nothing for her financial and commercial drainage of the United States.
“But the amount of her annual drainage of gold from the United States far exceeds that from India.
“Therefore the United States is by far the most valuable of all the dependencies of Great Britain.
“In the relation of India to England there is something pitiable, because India is helpless.
“In the relation of the United States to England there is nothing that is not contemptible, because it is the willing servitude of a nation that could help herself if she would.
“England is wide awake to those conditions, and keenly appreciates their priceless value to her.
“The United States blinks at them, half dazed, half asleep, insensible of their tremendous damage to her.
“England, clearly seeing that in this age more than ever before ocean empire is world empire, strains every nerve to perpetuate her sea power and exhausts her resources to double-rivet the fetters which it fastens upon mankind.
“Though in 1885 England already had a navy superior to those of any two and equal to those of any three otherpowers, if not to all others, she has since that date built a new navy which, with what remains most available of the old one, overshadows the world, and makes the sea as much British territory as the County of Middlesex.”
While this contest was going on between American ship-owners and ship-builders on the one hand and the alien combinations who control our ocean commerce on the other, a vast amount of American capital was gradually invested in shipping under the British flag, and at least an equal amount awaited any reasonable encouragement to build ships in this country to sail under the American flag. Of course, it would have been folly for the men who controlled this capital to invest it in American ships with a clear handicap of at least 15 to 20 per cent. against them in operating expenses, ton for ton, in competition with the aided, fostered, and subsidized fleets of England, Germany, and France. For a long time this mass of capital was held in hope of the adoption of a policy by our government that would tend to lift the handicap and equalize as far as possible the burdens of operating American ships as compared with others. But when Congress adjourned March 4, 1901, leaving the shipping question where it had been ever since the Civil War, and offering, if possible, less hope than ever before, the massof American capital that had been held back was let loose. Soon rumors that a great merger of British steamship lines with the International Navigation Company was in progress filled the air. It soon appeared that there was plenty of American capital to invest in ships under foreign flags, but none under the American flag so long as the existing situation might last. The ship-owners may have been patriotic, but their patriotism was not enthusiastic enough to make them willing to pay a penalty of 15 to 20 per cent. for the sake of it. This movement soon took shape in the organization of the International Mercantile Marine Company, in which was merged the control and management of the International, the White Star, the Leyland, and the Atlantic Transport Lines; the whole forming by far the greatest aggregation of vessels and tonnage ever grouped under one control. This control was American,[2]but the ships were of British registry except six, built by the Cramps and several others,—the “St. Louis,” “St. Paul,” “Kroonland,” and “Finland,” American built, and the “New York” and “Philadelphia” (formerly the “Paris”), British built,but admitted to American registry by the special Act of 1892.
2.Since this was written, the whole ownership of the Line is British.
2.Since this was written, the whole ownership of the Line is British.
The Americans were determined to own and operate ships. They would have preferred to run them under the American flag, but Congress—or rather a fraction in the House of Representatives—compelled them to use the British ensign! The commercial and financial effect of this was that the American investors got the benefit of the lower wages and cheaper subsistence of foreign seafaring labor. The vessels were American as to ownership only. No American officer or seaman or engineer or fireman was employed in them. They added nothing to the sea power of the country; they did nothing toward forming a nursery of American sailors to be in readiness for an emergency. On the contrary, they were a constant school for the Naval Reserve of a power that might become as hostile politically as she has been industrially and commercially from the beginning of our existence as an independent nation. None of these great facts appealed to the narrow and demagogic faction in the House. They could see in it nothing but “a trust,” and their parrot-cry resounded from the banks of the Wabash to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains.
Many men, hitherto hopeful, believe that anyfurther effort to restore our foreign carrying trade under the American flag must be in vain. They argue that, if the Houses of Representatives elected in 1898 and 1900 would not pass a Shipping Bill, none can ever be chosen that will. If foreign influences and alien doctrines could prevent consideration in those two Houses of bills that had already passed the Senate in each Congress, those influences and those doctrines are likely to maintain their potency indefinitely. If this be true, the American flag in the foreign trade is doomed to utter extinction within a few years on the Atlantic Ocean, and its survival in the Pacific is a matter of extreme doubt.
A strange feature of this contest in its later stages was the fact that the confederated trades-unions of the country arranged themselves unanimously against the American and in favor of the alien policy. Trades-unionism is founded upon a doctrine or dogma of protection more sweeping and more drastic than any other ever known. They cheerfully maintain and sometimes exultantly proclaim that, when nothing else will serve to accomplish their ends, violence and crime become logical and legitimate instrumentalities for enforcement of their protective doctrine. They take no account of the fact that the enactment of afavorable shipping law would open new and wide avenues of remunerative employment for American mechanics that are now closed. Their motive in opposing such legislation seems to be a sort of blind, groping revenge against a few ship-builders and ship-owners who have resisted their unreasonable and ruinous demands. It is a remarkable fact that the leaders and managers of the confederated trades-unions are all foreigners.
Naturally, such organizations, so led, fall easy dupes to the wiles of the alien ship-owners, who have never left any stone unturned or any expedient untried to defeat or smother in our own Congress legislation calculated to promote and extend our merchant marine.
Whatever the distant future may bring forth, there seems to be at this time and for the near future as little prospect of the development of a new and purely American merchant marine in the foreign trade as there has been at any time since the old one was destroyed.
Whatever may be the fate of the American merchant marine, it cannot be said that during the campaign for its resurrection, lasting almost continuously for over thirty years, Mr. Cramp has ever withheld from its advocacyany part of his knowledge, study, observation, and experience; and if, partly through the feebleness of our own patriotism in legislation and administration, and partly through the superior and more aggressive patriotism of foreign ship-owners and ship-builders, the American merchant marine should become extinct, it will not be his fault.