THE AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE AND PROTECTION.

Southland Times, Issue 682, 12 June 1867, Page 3

THE AMERICAN MERCANTILE MARINE AND PROTECTION.

In an article on the American navy,; in a late number of the Saturday Review, the following passage occursr—While the affairs of the navy itself are thus flourishing, the commercial marine of- the United States is fast disappearing^ The mischief ; begun by the war ; and., the Southern cruisers has been consummated by short-sighted legislation. That Ameri- j can ships Bhould be transferred to Britfsh ; owners was/ natural enough/ while the ! war continued,, but- it was generallyanticipated that, on the return 00 peace, the shipping interest in 'America would recover its old -prosperity. This has not been the- case, and even Americans have - traced the cause of the depression to the ' protective taxation, against which, their shipbuilders are unable to struggle. The builder's iron, brasSj steel, wood, coal, and tools are all taxecl, and, by the heavy taxation on almost everything that the ! labourer uses,' the cost of production has j been~ largely- increased. ~ Nova Scotiaalpne.i3 said to be building more ships than- all the • United States with their enormous extent of seaboard, and a con- j tinually-increasing proportion of the shipments to and from America is carried j in foreign bottoms. The last of their great ocean steamers, which once rivalled the speed and. excellence of the Cunard line, jare. about to be sold, and all hope of regaining her former share of the carrying -trade: of the~ world has gone from America', until she sees fit to acknowledge thh economical-laws- to which -even the sniarteßtf;EepubliC' must bow. - There ::is candour as well as ; shrewdness enough across the to admit and. retract a. ; blunder, and, notwithstanding their fierce-hatred-of- free Abstract, we have no doubt that the [Americana will find the way _to relieve th^ir shippings interest from the protection which is rapidly stifling ; it. -If the lesson thus pointedly taught by. the. rapid decline of one of their most important industrial interests should tend to open the eyes of the United States to some of their Protectionist errors, the decline of the carrying trade may in the end prove, the best fortune that they could have desired. It is too early, whether for the sake of the New or the Old World, to indulge -in such anticipations, but the 1 commercial instinct cannot fail in the end to triumph over the national prejudices even of Bepublicans, I and, sooner or later, free trade will make the voyage across the Atlantic. Mean- ' while, the comparative decline of American shipping must continue, and with it one of the chief supports to the navy, which has deserved so well of its country. |