RUINED TRADES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TIM "SPROTAT0R:]
SIR,—I understand that you have been canvassing Protec- tionists in search of a " ruined industry," and that your search for one in this country has met with meagre results. If you would early your inquiry to the United States, you might find that of which you are in search, though the cause of the
ruin of the industry in question was certainly not " Free- trade." I quote from Remy George (" Protection or Free Trade ?" pp. 198-207) the following passages :— "It is on the high seas and in an industry in which we once led the world that the effect of our protective policy can be most clearly seen. Thirty years ago ship-building had reached such a pitch of excellence in this country that we built, not only for ourselves, but for other nations. American ships were the fastest sailers, the largest carriers, and everywhere got the quickest dispatch and the highest freights. The registered tonnage of the United States almost equalled that of Great Britain, and a few years promised to give us the unquestionable supremacy of the ocean. The abolition of the more important British protec- tive duties in 1846 was followed in 1854 by the repeal of the navigation laws, and from thenceforth, not only were British subjects free to buy or build ships wherever they pleased, but the coasting trade of the British Isles was thrown open to foreigners.
Dire were the predictions of the British protectionists as to the utter ruin that was thus prepared for British com- merce. The Yankees were to sweep the ocean, and 'half- starved Swedes and Norwegians' were to drive the 'ruddy beef-eating English tar' from his own seas and channels. While one great commercial nation thus abandoned protection, the other redoubled it. The breaking out of our civil war was the golden opportunity of protection, and the unselfish ardor of a people ready to make any sacrifice to prevent the dismemberment of their country was taken advantage of to pile protective taxes upon them. The ravages of Confederate cruisers and the conse- quent high rate of insurance on American ships would under any circumstances have diminished our deep-sea commerce; yet this effect was only temporary, and but for our protective policy we should at the end of the war have quickly resumed our place in the carrying trade of the world, and moved forward to the lead with more vigor than ever. But crushed by a policy which prevents Americans from building, and forbids them to buy ships, our commerce ever since the war has steadily shrunk, until American ships which, when we were a nation of twenty-five millions, ploughed every sea of the globe, are now, when we number nearly sixty millions, seldom seen on blue water Once no American dreamed of crossing the Atlantic save on an American ship; to-day no one thinks of taking one. It is the French and the Germans who compete with the British in carrying Americans to Europe and bringing them back.. . , . . I do not complain of the inefficiency of our Navy . . . . . . but I do com- plain of the decadence in our ability to build ships. Our mis- fortune is that we lack the swift merchant fleet, the great foundries and shipyards, the skilled engineers and seamen and mechanics, in which, and not in navies, true power upon the seas consists. A people in whose veins runs the blood of Vikings have been driven off the ocean by—themselves It is said that it is the substitution of steam for canvas and iron for wood that has led to the decay of American shipping. This is no more reason . . . . . than is the substitution of the double topsail yard for the single topsail yard. River steamers were first developed here ; it was an American steamship that first crossed from New York to Liverpool, and thirty years ago American steamers were making the 'crack' passages With Free-trade we should not merely have kept abreast of the change from wood to iron, we should have led it. This we should have done, though not a pound of iron could have been produced on the whole continent. Had our shipbuilders been as free as their English rivals to get their materials wherever they could buy them best and cheapest, they could as easily have built ships with iron brought from England as they did (formerly) build them with knees from Florida, and planks from Maine and North Carolina, and spars from
Oregon. Ireland produces neither coal nor iron' but Belfast has become noted for iron ship-building, and iron can be carried across
the Atlantic almost as cheaply as across the Irish Sea Had we never embraced the policy of protection, we should to-day have been the first of iron producers. The advantage that Great Britain has over us is simply that she has abandoned the repres- sive system of protection, while we have embraced it From keelson to truck, from the wire in her stays to the brass in her taff rail log, everything that goes to the building, the fitting, or the storing of a ship is burdened with heavy taxes. Even should she be repaired abroad, she must pay taxes for it on her return home. Thus has Protection strangled an industry in which with Free-trade we might have led the world."
P.S.—It has struck me that the following figures from a Blue-book recently issued relating to the tonnage of merchant navies might form a fitting appendage to the quotation from Henry George:— 1860. 1902.
• United Kingdom, on Register .- 4,658,000 tong ... 10,0.54,770 tons U.S.A., Registered for oversee trade 2,546,000 tons ... 882,000 tons
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