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Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade By: John Codman (1814-1900) |
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THE RESTORATION OF THE AMERICAN CARRYING TRADE BY JOHN CODMAN.
NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 182 FIFTH AVENUE 1878
FREE SHIPS. The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade.
It may seem surprising that an American House of Representatives
should have been so ignorant of the meaning of a common word as to
apply the term "commerce" to the carrying trade, when in the session
of 1869 it commissioned Hon. John Lynch, of Maine, and his associated
committee "to investigate the cause of the decadence of American
commerce," and to suggest a remedy by which it might be restored. But, it was not more strange than that this committee really appointed
to look into the carrying trade to which the misnomer commerce was so
inadvertently applied, should have entirely ignored its duty by
constituting itself into an eleemosynary body for the bestowal of
national charity upon shipbuilders. Its Report fell dead upon the
floor of the House, and was so ridiculed in the Senate that when a
motion was made to lay the bill for printing it upon the table,
Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, suggested, as an amendment, that it be kicked
under it. Nevertheless, the huge volume of irrelevant testimony was
published for the benefit of two great home industries paper making
and printing. The theory of this committee was that the Rebellion had destroyed
another industry nearly as remote from the proper subject of inquiry
as either of these. These gentlemen concluded that shipbuilding was
becoming extinct, because the Confederate cruisers had destroyed many
of our ships a reason ridiculously absurd, in view of the corollary
that the very destruction of those vessels should have stimulated
reproduction. Since that abortive attempt to steal bounties from the
Treasury for the benefit of a favored class of mechanics, Government,
occupied with matters deemed of greater importance, has totally
neglected our constantly diminishing mercantile marine. By refusing to repeal the law that represses it, it may truly be said
that had every ingenuity been devised to accomplish its destruction,
its tendency to utter annihilation could not have been more certainly
assured than it has been by this obstinate neglect. In the session of 1876, Senator Boutwell of Massachusetts renewed
the proposition of Mr. Lynch, but his Bill was not called up in the
Senate. In the course of intervening years a little more light may be
presumed to have dawned upon Congress, and, therefore, it is to be
regretted that the Senator did not obtain a hearing, in order that
the fallacy of his argument might have been exposed. If any one cares to study the origin of our restrictive navigation
laws, he can consult a concise account of it given by Mr. David A.
Wells, in the North American Review , of December, 1877. It came
out of a compromise with slavery. The Northern States agreed
that slavery should be "fostered" that is a favorite word with
protectionists provided that shipbuilding should also be fostered,
and that New England ships for nearly all vessels were built in that
district should have the sole privilege of supplying the Southern
market with negroes! That sort of slavery being now happily at an end, shipbuilders still
inherit the spirit of their guild, merely transferring the wrong they
perpetrated on black men by binding all their white fellow citizens
with the bonds of their odious monopoly. Moreover, although the
arbitrary law of the mother country forcing the colonists to conduct
their commerce in British built ships was one exciting cause of the
Revolutionary Rebellion, Americans had no sooner obtained their
independence than they created a monopoly quite as tyrannical among
themselves. And yet, they were not then without excuse. At the time
when the Convention for forming the Federal Constitution convened in
1789, every civilized nation was exercising a similar restrictive
policy. But while all of them have either totally abolished or
materially modified their stringent laws touching their shipping
interests America, "the land of the free," the boasting leader of
the world's progress and enlightenment, stands alone sustaining
this effete idea... Continue reading book >>
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