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We will therefore make the needful corrections, and for the foregoing table substitute the following, the difference being in the first two statistical columns:

DEPRESSION OF CARRIAGE -CORRECTED TABLE.

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From the comparison of averages we may note that great changes have occurred in sixty-four years' time. tonnage is one third greater, and commerce nearly two thirds more per capita, we have lost extremely in carriage; of imports 76.86 per cent., of exports 78.42 per cent.; and in shipping per capita the excessive rate of 75 per cent.

In the period last taken, the annual average of American carriage of imports was $123,618,865; of exports, $75,963,162; and of both $199,582,027. Estimating the import freightage at 10 per cent., and the export at 15, we have the following statement of transportation, trade, and insurance:

$11,394,474

Carriage of $75,963,162 exports at 15 per cent.
Carriage of $123,618,865 imports at 10 per cent.

12,361,886

Whole value of carriage

$23,756,360

Profit on the commerce of equal amount
Insurance on cargoes, $199,582,027 at 1 per cent.

23,756,360

1,995,820

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Here is an amount of American business fully 5 per cent. less than was transacted in the period of sixty-four years ago.

Allowing foreign merchants, shipowners, and underwriters to have done the remainder of business at equal rates, we have the following statement of the foreign side of the case:

Carriage of $676,037,177 exports at 15 per cent.
Carriage of $599,597,463 imports at 10 per cent.

Whole value of carriage

$101,405,576 59,959,746

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161,365,322

Profit on the commerce of equal amount
Insurance on cargoes, $1,275,634,640 at 1 per cent. 12,756,346

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Here is an amount of foreign business increased so much beyond the limit of sixty-four years ago as to be enormous in its ratio, which is 6,551 per cent. Summing up the total of American and foreign business, we have the following statement:

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As we had 888,626 tons of shipping, on a basis of sail, engaged in creating the volume of business shown as American, it follows that each ton produced:

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Thus it appears, shipping is much less productive now than sixty-four years ago; also, to carry the same value, more tonnage is required, prices being lower and voyages longer, as a rule. It further appears, that to transact and carry 75 per cent. of the trade between our own and foreign countries, on the average for the past five years, we needed 1,860,212,197

÷ 280.36,640,072 tons of sail, or 3,320,036 tons of steam; or, if mixed in due proportion (about 30 per cent. of sail1 and 70 per cent. of steam),1 we would have required of sail, 1,171,770, and of steam, 2,734,151 tons.

The Present and the Future Need of Tonnage. An estimate of our shipping necessities for the present year may be fixed at 1,200,000 tons of sail, and 3,000,000 tons of steam. To increase the shipping we now have in foreign trade to this amount would require an outlay of $300,000,000. Under due protection, with this preparation made, we might command a business of $2,000,000,000, a vanishing fraction of which is now barely possible of attainment.

It will be seen that, without shipping of our own, the sum which might be earned and saved by carriage is but a small portion of the business lost. The loss of tonnage is but an index to the loss of business. Merchants without ships must needs give way to merchants with ships, therefore our commerce, as well as carriage, has become foreign. Foreign merchants and their agents, their ships and underwriters, now do, or let go undone, our foreign commerce and navigation, as they find it convenient or profitable. Is this a matter of private or national interest? Our own people should be interested and employed in this business, which should be in greater part our own. Is this subject not one of national concern? In the words of Webster, "Where there is employment there will be bread. Employment feeds and clothes and instructs. Employment gives health, sobriety, and morals. Constant employment and well-paid labor produce in a country like ours general prosperity, content, and cheerfulness." In every trade and calling not closely connected with commerce and navigation, our statesmen claim it is constitutional to clear the way for the employment of our people, but when they go from north to south, from east to west, and get to the water's edge, they lose their faculty for further work. In the language of Chauncy M. Depew, a few years ago:

"A chance in the markets of the world for our increasing surplus of production is one of the safety valves for the energies and the needs of a growing population. We build 140,000

1 The entrances and clearances in the salt water foreign trade in 1891 were in these proportions.

miles of railroad at a capitalization of $8,000,000,000 to bring the output of our farms, our mills, and our mines to the seacoast, and then sit on our treasures and gaze upon the ocean with something of the helpless wonder of the simple aborigines who first roamed these States."

Such helplessness did not characterize our people a century ago. All the worthies of our early government believed in an American marine. Their works responded to their faith. On their wise action shipbuilding, navigation, and commerce securely rested for twenty-five years of our national life. Affirming that a marine of our own was a national need, they created it, in the interest of the people. Knowing that the sole condition of its prosperity was governmental protection, they fortified it by policy and statesmanship, — by navigation laws, discriminating against the tonnage and carriage of foreign nations, and in favor of freighting our own fleets.

In the beginning, Thomas Jefferson foreshadowed the consequences of letting our foreign trade fall into rival hands. His words were these:

"If particular nations grasp at undue shares of our commerce, and more especially, if they seize on the means of the United States, to convert them into aliment for their own strength, and withdraw them entirely from the support of those to whom they belong, defensive and protective measures become necessary on the part of the nation whose marine resources are thus invaded; or it will be disarmed of its defense, its productions will be at the mercy of the nation which has possessed itself exclusively of the means of carrying them, and its politics may be influenced by those who command its commerce."

After all their care for navigation, it is scarcely possible that any of the fathers ever thought the time would come when Mr. Jefferson's tact and foresight would be appreciated, as they deserve to be to-day.

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CHAPTER IV.

THE NAVAL ARTS AND NATIONAL PROGRESS.

WITH nations, as with men, substantial progress comes of a contest with nature. Gaining knowledge and winning wealth means conquering its forces. Through agriculture and the mechanic arts; by mining, metal-working, and manufacturing; by engineering, shipbuilding, and navigation; by commerce, transportation, and telegraphy; in short, through and by industrial science and diligent labor, lies the true, the only way to national progress. The history of civilization gives no example of ignorance and indolence making their way to wealth and power.

Among the arts the skill of man has many monuments, but one masterpiece, wonderful in adaptation, capital in utility, controlling in influence, and that is the ocean ship, at once an engine of pride and power, and the arm of empire over sea and land. Shipbuilding is indeed the crowning glory of constructive art. If we question this, think for a moment what the world would be without vessels to-day. How many would be the pursuits cut off, the resources forfeited, the wants unsupplied; and what opportunities would be lost to our race, its progress, civilization, and happiness; to the employment of labor, the increase of wealth, and the power of nations, if the shipbuilder should close his yard and the mariner sail no more. Shipbuilding and navigation have wrested from barbarism two thirds of the globe. Without these trades the Dark Ages might yet return, for the arts of peace came in with commerce, and have flourished on nautical and commercial life. They have never otherwise succeeded. Science gained but small advances while the deep was unexplored. Grim-visaged war held high carnival on land, until bold and heroic minds spent their forces on the sea.

The Progress of Navigation - British Ascendency. While

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