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Show !Free Trade And No Ships; What Then? rTpHB Democrats have control of the House of Representatives, and a distinguished Republican Re-publican senator says the Republicans no longer control the senate, meaning that on crucial cru-cial questions, the insurgent Republicans will vote with the Democrats. Now the Democratic Demo-cratic party is at heart a free trade party. Its representatives in congress are coquetting a l.t-tle l.t-tle with the" tariff now, but were the party to obtain ob-tain the presidency and control of both houses of congress, another Wilson bill would be framed I and passed within a year. Ijj But at the same time there would be no 11 chance of restoring the Merchant Marine of the Ijj country. The Democratic party believes in the l English idea of raising revenue, but it rejects the II English theory of ocean commerce, and in effect li says, "If American ships cannot hold their own I against foreign ships, why it is better for us to I hire our freighting done by foreigners. They I ' look with indifference upon what Germany has I done by keeping her merchant ships going dur- l-r ing the past thirty years, and seem altogether I oblivious of the effect of the drain of $250,000,000 I per annum which this country pays annually to I foreign ship owners and which reduces the cash ; reserves of this country just that much, and wh'ch j added to what has to go abroad to pay inter-I inter-I n est and dividends, keeps this country without a H ft r surplus and in such a condition that the failure of one crop would utterly prostrate the business of H the country. H , There is yet another feature. The ship owners I , of two or three foreign countries fix the rates ito be charged for passengers and freights. Now with the tariff eliminated and the freighting left to the foreigners, what possible chance would there be for American merchants and manufacturers manufac-turers to extend American trade? If anything were to be sent abroad those ship owners would know what it was. They would fix the rates and would at the same time notify their countrymen of the shipment and the freight charged. Would not the natural result be that their own coun- tries would at once forestall the shipment and H ! when the American goods reached their destlna- H tion, would not foreign goods of the same kind H and style be there and for sale at prices which H would close the market to tho American goods? H . With such a prospect ahead, what was really H the object of constructing the Panama canal? H And when statesmen and wise journals tell Hw us what the canal is bound to do for American Ek commuoe, whai, do they really mean? The south HK may send out some cotton through it, but it will Hi I have to go in foreign ships. We are not sure of H j even that until we know what the tolls are to Hgf be on the canal. ' A penny a pound on cotton is on an average Hw 10 per cent of its value, .. nd the difference of a HS' month or two in delivering it does not matter. KiS One cent a pound would mean, on a ship like the WR Olympia, $700,000; a tenth of that would mean A $70,000 loll, so that really only ships loaded with costly freight can afford to patronize the canal, for $70,000 would buy coal to run the Olympia probably twenty six days and that would be enough to drive the ship from England around through the straits of Magellan and up to Panama. But this is a diversion. The question we desire to ask the country Is, with free trade and no shipping, how long would it take foreign shipowners ship-owners and manufacturers to so drain the United States of money, and so prostrate all its skilled industries that the Great Republic would not become the pity of the whole world? |