Senator Frye continued: "These figures represent facts, not fancies, and show that if the American line offers to take cargoes from New York to Rio for $7.50 per ton, the Spanish ship can offer, for same cargo in our own ports, to carry at $5.03, and be on the same basis as the American. Am I not justified, then, in my assertion that American ships cannot compete successfully with those of these other countries in the foreign carryingtrade, even though the first cost of ours was merely nominal? Clearly, then, neither a reduction of the cost of an American ship of 15 or 20 per cent., by the admission, free of duty, of all the materials, machinery, etc., entering into her construction, nor the admission of foreign-built ships to an American registry, will secure to us our fair proportion of the carrying-trade of the world. What legislation will? In my deliberate, carefully considered opinion, only such as for a term of years will provide for the payment to every American vessel, of sail or steam, of wood, of iron, of steel, a navigation premium of so much a mile for every mile such vessel sails and carries freight in the foreign trade, and that premium sufficient to make the terms between foreign ships and ours about equal." Wages and Living of Foreign and American Crews. The wages paid to American crews are, on the average of the fleet in any trade, much higher than to crews of foreign ships, and they always have been higher since we had a merchant marine. This difference in wages has not been due to duties on foreign goods, but mainly to the activity and skill of our seamen, and the opportunities existing for a livelihood ashore. To this difference in wages must be added a difference in provisions and stores. The character and intelligence of our people forbid, on the part of owners or crew, the mean, cheap, and scanty living that obtains on board of nearly all foreign ships. Again, to these differences must be added the general undermanning of foreign ships, in consequence of sharp competition for freights. These circumstances, once of little or no disadvantage, have grown adverse in degree year by year since the war, and have now become hard to contend with. The average ship of all nations, with which our vessels must compete, is able to save, certainly 25, and perhaps 35 per cent. of every dollar that an American ship would pay for crews, provisions, and stores. When steady employment and full cargoes could be commanded, as was the case under protection, foreign shipping seemed to have no advantage over our own. The removal of protection has developed the present state of things, when foreign advantage casts its shadow from keel to truck and from cask to pot. When this happens ashore, protection is reinvoked; when it occurs afloat, our statesmen seem to take no interest in it. Formerly, with the aid of protection, our people in nautical pursuits were able by skill and strength to overcome foreign cheapness of all kinds. But the spread of knowledge in modeling, propeling, and navigating vessels has reduced our oldtime superiority, so that inferiority in building, manning, and sailing is not the heavy drawback that it once was with European nations. And while competition is not international, as it was forty years ago, but ships are chosen by national preference, it is much easier than formerly, when American merchants controlled our trade, for foreign ships to command the carrying of American commerce. In our palmy days and for a time afterward, we carried our exports to foreign countries in shipping of our own. Now, the vessels of those foreign countries come here with cargoes from every part of the world, and return with our products. The only chance to make employment for our vessels seems to be, under present laws, in sending merchandise to countries destitute of ships and steamers; but this, even, requires protection, for in this trade all flags compete to lower freights. To illustrate the changes made by all the nations in the manning of their marines, reference may be made to the course pursued in England. Reduction in Crews of British Sail Ships. From tables printed in the report of the Bureau of Navigation for 1889, it appears that in 10 years, 1877 to 1887, the shortening of crews of 25 ships (representative of the British marine) was 95 out of 698 persons, a decrease of 13.61 per cent. Besides this change, there was an increase of 5.06 per cent. of foreign seamen; and yet a third decrease in expense, fewer petty officers. These ships, averaging 1,188 tons each, now carry only 2 men to the 100 tons. Thirty-five years ago, when American shipping was thought to have a chance to keep the sea, carrying from 2 to 3 men to the 100 tons, British ships of equal size carried 3 to 4 men to the 100 tons, and other nations from 4 to 5 men. Reduction in Crews of British Steamers. From the tables referred to, it also appears that in 10 years the shortening of crews in 28 representative steamers, averaging 1,614 tons each, was only 1.34 per cent.; but the officers were reduced 9.14 per cent.; able seamen, 17.33 per cent.; and ordinary seamen, 64 per cent. The manning was further cheapened by increasing the proportion of foreigners in general 5.95 per cent., and of Lascars in particular 5.61 per cent. The proportion of men to each 100 tons, exclusive of master, is now 3.79 per cent., about the same as carried by American ocean-freighting steamers of equal tonnage. But 4 of these 28 steamers are in the passenger trade, and necessarily carry more men than the 24 in the freighting business. Computing for these alone, the shortening of crews was as follows: SHORTENING OF FREIGHT STEAMER CREWS. In the case of the Glengoil, chartered tramp, referred to, 2,963 tons, run by 30 men, the number to the 100 tons 1.01 Thus, it appears that British freighting steamers have stripped for competition, and really carry fewer men than British sailing ships did 30 years ago, or even now in the smaller craft. And it is intelligence, not ignorance on shipboard, that suffers the reduction. In 1890 a British tea steamer from Hong Kong arrived in New York with 17 Chinese sailors forming her crew in the deck department. The average pay for such help does not exceed $8 per month, and their food is cheap, of course. The number of Chinese coming to the United States as seamen on foreign ships is increasing every year, and Asiatics of different countries are gradually displacing Caucasians of all nations in the forecastles of the ships of all having East India colonies. We may, therefore, conclude, in view of all the odds and advantages of foreign nations in keeping down the manning expenses of their ships, how utterly idle and sinister it is to talk about buying vessels abroad, as a cure-all for our present unequal and ruinous footing. Suppose we buy our ships in Liverpool, shall we get our sailors from Hong Kong? The one measure fits the other. The one would bring about the other. Buying foreign ships, to be sailed by foreign seamen, will give us foreign owners as well as foreign builders. We now have alien merchants and foreign underwriters, and, on this line, whence will come an American marine? And what interest can the American people have in any other? Tables of Wages. The following tables of seamen's wages are fairly representative for the present time. They are 50 per cent. higher than 50 years ago, and from 50 to 100 per cent. above the wages paid by foreign nations now competing for our trade. NEW YORK AND WEST INDIA TRADE. |