Salt Lake Telegram | 1907-01-17 | Page 7 | Ship-Subsidy Bill, is Reported, Makes Gifts to Harriman and Hill

SHIP-SUBSIDY BILL, AS REPORTED, MAKES GIPTS TO HARRIrlAN AND HILL v WASHINGTON, Jan. 17. There was a distinct condition of ferment in the House of Representatives yesterday because of the fact that th members at large were deprived wholly of information in-formation as to the exact charsrter of the subsidy bill, which was snppos''l to have been reported from the Committee Com-mittee on Merchant Marine and Fish eries, Tuesday, after sn extraordinary fight which necessitated actual adjournment ad-journment of the House to permit the committee to act. To cap the climax of the peculiar tactics which have leen adopted, the bill, a reported, was withheld from the public printer so that it could not be printed in time to be put in the boxes of the members yesterday, according ac-cording to the usual custom. No mem- her or the Mouse had a draft of the messure, and as it had never been formally for-mally considered in the committee, and never debated, the members of the House are sMil in the dark. All that they know is that the bill provide for a total subsidy of no less than fl.OOO.ndO, jn addition to $260.-oOO $260.-oOO ravable under the existing law, which will be divided among Harri-nian. Harri-nian. Hill and Spreckels. because they already have lices running over the routes indicated in the bill, and no other K'.in could afford to build a single steamship to compete with them. The subsidies for these three lines are certain to prove intensely unpopu- ! lar in the House, and the chances are 1 they will be reported out by a com- I mittee combination of H-publicans and democrats. They nre not included in tiie fi.'herue suggested by Secretary j Root for steamship lines to South. ! America, arid the payment of this 1 enormous annual subsidy to them j would not result. 11 all probability, in j the building of another American ship or the earning of anothtr American llag on the Pacific ocean. j