DISCOURAGING AMERICAN COMMERCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 7

DISCOURAGING AMERICAN COMMERCE.

[news of the world.] The Pacific States have been very much interested in the progress through Congress of two important measures affecting the commerce of the country. One of these is a Bill to grant an annual subsidy to a line of steamers between San Francisco and Australia, and the other is to increase that already paid to the line now established between this port and China and Japan, on con dition that semi-monthly, instead of monthly trips, should be made hereafter. The New Zealand Government has already voted a subsidy to the firstnamed of these lines, although the enterprise is purely American , and the vessels are to carry the American flag. Theother scheme has anactualexistence; the steamers are running, and these are the only mail steamships now afloat which carry our flag between domestic and foreign ports. It was hoped that national pride, and a broad and statesmanlike view of the commercial policy of the country would move Congress to grant both of these subsidies, not because private parties were to be benefited, nor because the States of the Pacific side of the Republic wanted them.; but because the commerce of the whole country needs encouragement, and here was one opportunity where this depressed interest could be somewhat stimulated by legitimate and constitutional means. The Senate has rejected both measures, and the propositions to subsidize the Australian and the China lines have been defeated, so far as the Congress is concerned. And it remains to be seen whether the next Congres will be any more favorably disposed toward the enterprises named. In making any criticism upon the unexpected and unfortunate action of the Senate, some allowance ought to be made to the ignorant simplicity of senators. As soon as proposed subsidies to the Australian and Cuba lines were brought forward, there was a hasty spawning of a shoal of infamous schemes to plunder the public treasury, under the pretext of securing subsidies for ocean mail service. Most of these were so preposterous as to bring only ridicule and contempt Upon their originators; but, uufortunately, these measures vitiated the standing of all others in the estimation of Senators and Congressmen, who had not perspicuity enough to discern between good and bad. Ignorant men from the backwoods of the Republic heard of colossal schemes to draw millions from fke Troasarj, without rq rapch|*RS a

single ship built as a nucleus for a marine fleet; and so they hastily concluded thilt all steamship lines were jobs, that all, steamships were rotten, and they refused to listen to any arguments or examine into any facts. The agents of the illegitimate jobs, by sheer force of lobbying, compelled the other bills to be classed with theirs, and so, when the bad failed, the good was involved in the common disaster which overtook them.

Hon. Zachariah Chandler, a violent and narrow-minded man, who, bv some freak of fortune, represents the Stale of Michigan -in the Senate, and, by a ludicrous combination of blunders, is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce (of all things in the world!) exhibited himself on the steamship subsidy question, when the China mail proposition came up, the other day, for final disposition. The sage statesman from Michigan, temporarily in charge of much of the commercial interests of the country, reared himself up and charged that this whole thing was a job; that the amount of traffic between the United States was too insignificant to be spoken of; that “ the worn out and rotten hulks should be turned out into deep sea soundings, and ten pounds of nitro-glvcerine put in and let us hear no more of them. It is not possible for sll intelligent American to read such ignorant blackguardism as this without feelings of indignation and mortifica.tion. Jt were charity to the roaring Michigander to believe, that he was not himself when he made this extraordinary statement. To be sure it is disgraceful that an inebriated person saould stand up and make speeches in the Senate; but this has happened so often that we are used to it: and it would stiil be more humiliating to be obliged to confess that the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce is so ignorant of the commerce of lfis country as to believe that • the ’’ America Great Republic and the Japan, the finest wooden steamships that float on any sea, are “ rotten hulks,” fit only to be turned adrift to wreck. It is bad enough that the chairman pf such an important Committee as the Committee on Commerce should disgrace himself publicly ; but it would be still worse if he should believe of an international traffic, which carries abroad more than eight and a half millions of our products annually, aud brings nearly three millions to the country, that it was “ too insignificant to be spoken of.” And yet this man, this parole of a statesman, has charge in the United States Senate of the commercial interests of the country.

It is a shame and a disgrace that the commercial States of the Union are so much at the mercy of these narrowminded backwoodsmen in Congress. Why Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio should control, as they largely do, the marine interests of the seaboard States is one of the mysteries of our Republican form of Government into which no common sense can penetrate. Men who never saw salt water in their lives, who would be astonished to learn that a ship was hollow, are put in charge of tariffs, maritime affairs, and matters pertaining to foreign commerce, while, with equal mal-appro-priateness, the manufacturers of the Middle States have charge of mining and land affairs. In this odd jumble, the Pacific States, whose interests are still peculiar, suffer most, because our six Senators are not a unit in politics ; and since California has sent thither a new democratic senator we have lost the influence and prestige which, under more fortunate conditions, we were gaining. So we must submit to the discouragements which visit us, and through us, the commerce of the country.