American business men to put capital in ships? By no means. There is in fact a large amount of American money invested in ships aside from our coasting trade.
But that money has sought investment in ships flying foreign flags—the British flag, the flag of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the flag, as I am told, even of the Dominican Republic. Aye, it is a matter of common report that two of the finest ocean grayhounds plying between New-York and Liverpool are substantially owned and controlled by Americans, while they are sailing under British colors, and form part of Her British Majesty’s navy reserve, to fight against us in case of war between England and the United States, the happening of which heaven forbid! Have we any right to accuse those Americans of a lack of patriotism? Why did they not put their money into ships bearing the stars and stripes? Simply because American laws prevented them. We have navigation laws reading like relics of a barbarous age, which forbid us to buy ships where we might buy them as cheaply as other nations buy them; and we have tariff laws under which we cannot build ships as cheaply as other nations build them. I know, for many years we have had a statute in force admitting free certain materials imported for ship building purposes, but it was so contrived that its provisions in the main benefit only the building of wooden vessels, which in the foreign trade are fast becoming a thing of the past. Thus we can neither buy nor can we build modern ships fit to compete with the commercial fleets of the world abroad. That is the way in which our merchant marine has become that pitiable starveling in our national household, a monumental victim of murderous legislative persecution.
What is the remedy? We hear glowing speeches made in favor of subsidies, leaving otherwise the laws as they stand. Have not the United States tried subsidies before, even under more promising circumstances? Have subsidies ever really and lastingly benefited our ocean commerce? Never. What would they be now under our present laws? An attempt to cure lameness with doses of brandy to stimulate the system of the patient. Tried again, they would end as they have ended before: money sunk, and, worse than that, time and opportunity lost, a delusion kept up to divert the popular mind from the true remedy.
The wise physician is not satisfied with deceiving palliatives. He adapts his prescription to the nature of the disease. The nature of this disease is clear. It is restriction by law. And what is the natural remedy? None other than the great American medicine, Freedom. Freedom to buy ships where they can advantageously be bought, they to be our ships, the stars and stripes to be hoisted over them. Freedom to get the material as advantageously as other nations get it, for building ships on American soil.
Do not say that this will endanger American ship yards. Endanger what? There can hardly be less ship building for the ocean
