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Show paid in-subsidies,' from a business standpoint, how would the matter stand I "We nowpayout to foreign ships $200,000,000. Could we keep that at home we would-have $190,000,000 left after paying the subsidy. sub-sidy. Would not that be worth, more than the $10)-000,000! $10)-000,000! "But the $10,000,000 would likewise be saved.' More still. "Five hundred thousand more of our skilled laborers would be at work in our shipyards," ship-yards," in our coal and iron mines, in the establishments' establish-ments' that supply the materials out of which 'ships are built and caparisonedJ Then we would have ship yards 4hat could, if the need came, build lighting ships as swiftly as England and Japan can now. ' Then when the steam lines were onee'established, it would' be as when through the tariff it was possible pos-sible to erect tin plate plants in our country. The price of tin plate was reduced lower than when we imported'it and "the $18, 000,000 which twenty years ago we were paying to the workers of Wales and to the ships that brought their tin plate to us annually goes now to our own workingmen. "In freights alone. we would get back the subsidy before 'five years, just by the reduction in the rates. When will our so-called statesmen begin to comprehend compre-hend the'truth! . , A PLEA FOR MERCHANT STEAMERS. The naval display at Hampton Roads ought to have been seep by every Senator and Representative of the United States. We think they would have been proud of the spectacle that their country's ships made in comparison with the ships of all the other Dations. , ' Then possibly the thought might have come while little Japan even has 1200 merchant teamers, if there were no other means of conveying the fa"t that our nation'exists to outside countries pxcept through our own ships, the outside world would not know that we had an existence. Is not lhat-a shameful situation for a nation like our own to be in? Is it not the more shameful when we reflect re-flect that we every year pay out to foreign ship own- j prs, for the freights 8nd passengers of our country . more than $200,000,000? Great Britain, France and fJermany each has a ' great merchant marine; so has Japan. Each one bas built up that merchant marine by paying subsidies subsi-dies to its merchant steamers. No other nation has ever succeeded in any other way in doing that since the ocean trade of the world has been transferred to steamers. Still there is always in Congress a majority ma-jority backed by a strong press in our cities, that itands like a stone wall against adopting any means through which we may obtain a commercial standing on the sea. The argument is the old narrow one: "You want to make some rich men richer." Now suppose $10,000,000 per annum were to'be |