The Report of the Secretary of the American Treasury, Mr.
Gage, published this week, recommends that a new American seagoing merchant-fleet shall be built up,—presumably by means of bounties and exclusive rights and privileges, and the con- fining of the trade between the United States, Porto Rico, and Hawaii, and the coasting trade of those islands, to " vessels of American registry." That is a very foolish, and indeed suicidal, policy if America wants an ocean-going mercantile marine, but we cannot think that the Times is at all well advised in making the sort of protests it does in its Thursday's issue. America must, and will, manage her own internal affairs in her own way, and it is useless to scold her for not considering
our commercial rights. Our commerce is safe enough, whatever happens, and will not lose, but benefit, by America's economic blunders., We want America to adopt a more rational trade policy for her own sake, not ours, and because we do not want to see her Colonial Empire ruined at the outset by allowing Trusts and the rest of the monopolist fungi of Protection to exploit her new possessions. America, if she is wise, will remember that the true road of empire lies through freedom, and not through jealousy, monopoly, and exclusiveness.
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