naturalize a ship built in a foreign country. To constitute a ship or vessel of the United States,' it is necessary, not only that it should be owned by a citizen or citizens thereof, but that it should have been built within the same. The two exceptions to this general rule embrace those vessels which are captured by our citizens from a public enemy, and declared to be lawful prize, and those which are condemned for a violation of the revenue laws.' There never was a period, in the history of the Federal Government, when an American citizen could purchase from a foreign shipbuilder, a vessel built in a foreign country, and have her so naturalized under our laws as to free her from the imposition of our discriminating duties. The shipbuilder and the navigator have always moved hand in hand. The same kind of encouragement was offered to both, and the same success attended that encouragement. We are now able to manufacture ships much cheaper, as I shall show hereafter, than they can be manufactured in Great Britain.

In the first two acts of Congress, to which I have referred, imposing duties on tonnage, there is a provision which shows with how much solicitude we regard the manufacture of ships. They contain an exception in favor of vessels built within the United States, and belonging to foreigners. Upon such ships the tonnage duty of fifty cents, exacted upon each entry of a foreign vessel, was reduced to thirty cents.

*

"Our foreign navigation, like every other interest which has been judiciously selected, soon required no protection to sustain it. [This was a fatal error, as it has proved]. By the year 1815, it had become so powerful that it was prepared to contend against the navigation of the world. All it wanted was a fair field, and the blessing of Heaven upon the contest. The infant had become a giant, ready to go forth, glorying in its might and confident of victory. It then needed no discriminating duties for its protection. * This Government, since

* * *

-In 1852, Congress enacted that foreign vessels wrecked and abandoned in the waters of the United States may be rescued and repaired by citizens and treated as American-built; and of late Congress has fallen into a bad habit of admitting to registry by special act. Only the old exemptions are for the National good.

that time, has devoted itself with as much anxiety and zeal to obtain for it a free trade with all nations as it had done to protect its infancy against foreign competition. Its true interest equally dictated both systems of policy.

*

*

* *

* *

"A few years after the passage of the act of 1815, we embarked in what was considered by many a Knight-errant expedition, in favor of our navigation. The long established policy of Great Britain had locked up her colonial possessions against the navigation of all other nations. Congress passed a law in April, 1818, which declared: That the 'ports of the United States shall be and remain closed against every vessel owned wholly or in part by a subject or subjects of His Brittanic Majesty, coming or arriving from any port or place that is or shall be, by the ordinary laws of navigation or trade, closed against vessels owned by citizens of the United States.' The provisions of this act were considerably extended by those of the supplementary act of May, 1820.

"Upon whom did the navigating interest of the country rely, for achieving a victory over the British colonial policy? * * * * At length the farmers-and other citizens of this country-at the expense of much pecuniary suffering, extorted from the British Government the act of Parliament of 24th June, 1822. By this act Great Britain surrendered her monopoly, and opened her West India trade to our navigation.

"In what manner have we now lost that trade? * * * * We insisted that our productions should be admitted into the West Indies upon the same terms with those of the British colony Upon this point alone was the negotiation

of Canada.

suspended.

* *

"I shall mention one other example to show with what care this Government has fostered its navigation. France, immediately after she was freed from the long and desolating wars in which she had been engaged, turned her attention towards her commercial marine. It was a principal object of her policy to increase her tonnage. For this purpose she established discriminating duties in favor of cotton, tobacco, and potashes, [pro

ducts of the United States] imported in her own vessels, which were equivalent to a tonnage duty of from $18 to $21 per ton. On the 15th May, 1820, we passed an act which imposed a countervailing duty of $18 per ton upon all French vessels entering the ports of the United States. The consequence of this measure was, the suspension, in a great degree, of the direct trade between this country and France. * * * We were successful, and in June, 1822, France yielded to our demands; and the consequence has been, that our navigation has acquired nearly the whole carrying-trade between the two countries.

66 * * ** I ask the gentleman from Maine, after this review of our legislation, whether he will now say that our navigation has received no protection? We protected it in its infancy by our legislation; and after it had risen superior to all foreign competition, we have exerted all our energies to obtain for it a free trade, well knowing that upon equal terms1, it must and would be successful against the navigation of any other nation."

Thus ended this notable debate. While it was easy to demonstrate that our original shipping policy had been fully, and still was partially protective, MR. BUCHANAN failed signally to show that the substitute policy was equally as good. He assumed, without proof, that it was sufficient; and held without logic, that, what it had not done, it could nevertheless do; while MR. SPRAGUE showed by facts that, so far as tried, it had been detrimental, the case of France to the contrary, notwithstanding. The phrase "equal terms " is delusive. It implies that there are no other "terms" than legislative to be equalized, but there are many. Freedom of trade will not secure equality of conditions in shipping any more than in manufactures. Conditions for successful competition is the work of legislative protection in any branch of business, that would otherwise be carried on at a disadvantage and loss by any nation. The uneven growth and development of shipping power among the nations of the world in the past seventy years, their marines until up to fifteen years ago running mostly under a free trade," shows plainly what I-Not knowing, but assuming, that legislative terms were the only ones to be equalized

was erroneous.

that principle is calculated to work out. It can be seen that Great Britain is the principal nation to be benefitted, and that it has been most hurtful to the United States. As already shown, PRESIDENT JEFFERSON, in his message of 1802, plainly intimated his want of faith in a free trade on equal legislative terms. After informing Congress that Great Britain had proposed "a mutual abolition of the duties and countervailing duties," he added this cautionary sentence:

"Whether this would produce a due equality in the navigation between the two countries, is a subject for your consideration."

Evidently, he did not think it would; and it did not fool the Congress of that time. Later when Great Britain's plan was acceded to, and legislative protection was suspended, it proved disastrous to the United States-ergo, the Commissioner of Navigation denies that we ever had a protective policy!

Conclusion III.

"The statistics relied upon to prove from 1815 to 1821 an alleged decline in our shipping as the result of the establishment of reciprocity with Great Britain are unreliable. That apparent decline was in fact produced by correction of the books of the custom houses in 1818."

How could the correction of books in 1818 affect the years afterward? While this statement as a whole has more concealment than information, and more assumption than can be sustained, it is modest comparatively. Elsewhere the Commissioner was bolder. On page 4 he says:

"The statistics upon which reliance is placed by some, to show the favorable effects of the operation of discriminating duties between 1789 and 1815, are, in the main, untrustworthy and very incomplete. As early as 1800 the Hon. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, stated: "There is good reason to believe that the total difference between the actual tonnage of every description and the tonnage returned in the statement as such was not less than 200,000 tons on the last day of the year 1800

that is to say, instead of the 972,000 tons exhibited in this statement the United States did not possess over 770,000 tons."

MR. GALLATIN was referring to the well-known difficulty of keeping tonnage returns so completely in hand that at any time fixed the books will show with absolute correctness the number of vessels and amount of tons extant. The losses at sea necessarily come in some time afterward, and in a few cases never come in, but that is not to say they are never noted and corrections never made. When one year is compared with another errors are usually balanced or nearly so. Practically the records are more reliable than the reasoning that ignores their teaching. The Commissiouer of Navigation knows more than he tells when he points out the abstract errors of tonnage statistics. It has been shown of his own returns that they are quite imperfect -in fact, it has been charged in print that his tables are 'padded," the endeavor being to keep up the amount of our tonnage in the foreign trade, so it will seem that we are holding our own, or on the gain, and therefore no need of protective legislation. While he charges that "incorrect figures" have run from 1800 to 1818,-and by parity of reasoning down to present time,—deceiving the ignorant and credulous, he knows that it is only the ignorant and the credulous that he can impose upon. MR. GALLATIN was the Secretary of the Treasury from May 14, 1801, to April 20, 1813; and was responsible for the statistics of his Department, for that period at least. A. J. DALLAS, and Wм. H. CRAWFORD succeeded him, filling in the time until 1824. It is late in the century to condemn their official work, nor should it be done to forge an argument.

There is practically nothing in the statement of SECRETARY GALLATIN that should be twisted into a detraction of the work of his predecessors, DEXTER, WOLCOTT, and HAMILTON. Suppose there was too much tonnage on the rolls in 1800 by 200,000 tons, as alleged, there is little weight of argument in it, since the advocates of discriminating duties do not depend upon the abstract accuracy of any statistics for their convictions. They have other testimony as it has been shown. Besides, our fathers depended