II. REVIEW OF AMERICAN SHIPPING A. TONNAGE CARRIED IN AMERICAN 1. In Coastwise Trade To get a proper understanding of the shipping question it is essential to take a brief view of the history of American shipping. The following tables taken from the Report of the United States Commissioner of Navigation will serve to give an idea of the size of the American merchant marine at various times, as compared with the necessity for tonnage to supply an ever increasing demand: The statistics of our coastwise tonnage thus show a continuous growth, supplying the steadily increasing demand exactly as would be expected considering the increasing business of the country. 2. In Foreign Trade As compared with the table showing the American tonnage engaged during our history in the coastwise, it is interesting to note the tonnage engaged in corresponding years in the foreign trade. The statistics of foreign commerce are taken from "The American Merchant Marine," by Winthrop L. Marvin. A study of the above table shows a remarkable growth in the amount of American foreign trade causing a demand for shipping. Except as influenced by the War of 1812 and the Civil War, this growth is found to be a healthy and continuous one. With this enormously increasing demand, it is evident that the small amount of tonnage engaged in our foreign trade, according to the table, cannot be accounted for as being the natural result of supply and demand. B. SHIPPING LEGISLATION 1. As to Coastwise Trade The policy of American lawmakers has from an early date been one highly favorable to American ships in the coastwise trade. It has always been considered that the coastwise, lake, and river trade should be carried by our own vessels, and as soon as it became evident that legislation would be necessary to keep out foreign bottoms, measures were at once taken. Accordingly, on July 20, 1789, Congress imposed a tax of six cents a ton on American-built ships owned by Americans, and of fifty cents a ton on ships constructed and owned abroad. It was further provided, as to the coasting trade, that American vessels should pay this tax but once during the year, while the foreign vessel should pay the tax whenever it entered an American port. At that time, when the freight earned by the average vessel was so much less than at present because of the smaller tonnage, such a tax was almost prohibitive. An American vessel of two hundred tons would pay a tax of twelve dollars a year, and might make fifty trips during that period. A foreign vessel of the same size would be forced to pay a tax of one hundred dollars every time it entered an American seaport, thus placing it under a handicap of practically one hundred dollars a trip. This tax was intended to, and did for all practical purposes, bar foreign carriers from our coastwise trade. Later, on April 5, 1808, Congress passed an act supplementing the Embargo Act, which absolutely forbade foreign carriers to enter our coastwise trade under any conditions, and thus closed this trade to the few alien vessels which might at times pay the high tonnage tax. In 1809 this absolute prohibition was modified, but on March 1, 1817, Congress passed a navigation bill, the fourth clause of which was as follows: SECTION 4. That no goods, wares, or merchandise shall be imported, under penalty of forfeiture thereof, from one port of the United States to another port of the United States, in a vessel belonging wholly or in part to the subject of any foreign power; but this clause shall not be construed to prohibit the sailing of any foreign vessel from one to another port of the United States: Provided no goods, wares, or merchandise, other than those imported in such vessel from some foreign port, and which shall not have been unladen, shall be carried from one port or place to another in the United States. This law reserving the coastwise trade to American ships has always remained upon our statute books, and has been rigidly enforced. The statute has in every instance been construed favorably to our shipowners. |