be replaced, Great Britain could reproduce her vessels in half the time it would take the other five nations to reproduce their fleets; and, besides, Britain would have the seamen, the transports, the colliers, and the scouts - every instrumentality of naval war ready for the fray, when her navy was restored. Thus it is, that shipbuilding power is not only an essential element in naval warfare, but the very first requisite for final victory. The next necessary is ship-manning power, which always corresponds with the size and service of a native merchant marine.

Rational Statesmanship Needed. It was a knowledge of the principles behind these facts that caused our early statesmen to provide, that the shipping engaged in American commerce must be, not only owned, but built and manned by our own people. They did not leave this work to begin or to run itself. They felt that the national weal involved should be cared for by Congress and secured by the laws. They knew that an American carrying trade in American-built vessels would become the foundation of American sea power, to which we must eventually owe our prosperity and independence. From history they had learned that the nation itself cannot but be concerned in the cultivation and perfection of the naval arts far beyond the interest of individuals, firms, or corporations. These can choose other pursuits than those having to do with the sea, but the nation itself so depends upon the carrying on of these industries that our Government must encourage their development, or fail ingloriously to secure the object of its own establishment. In this light, it may easily be seen that no part of a permanent policy for the restoration of our ruined shipping interest should look to the touch of American shipbuilding with a thoughtless or selfish hand. As the first essential of sea power, no maritime nation can attain rank, security, or prosperity without shipyards and their mechanic forces. On the other hand, commercial independence and financial freedom, liberty of vocation and national greatness, will always have their deeper roots in the naval arts. It will pay, therefore, to return to the policy of the fathers, and to make the United States at sea, the equal of any nation on the Earth.

CHAPTER III.

COLONIAL AND STATE ENCOURAGEMENT OF NAVIGATION.

Origin of American Navigation Laws. It has been erroneously said that our early shipping legislation grew out of a disposition to copy the course of the "mother country." It will be found, however, that our encouragement of the carrying trade, by regulating it, was by no means a new thing in the United States at the opening of Congress under the Constitution. There had been in most of the Colonies before the Revolution, and afterward in the States, distinctive enactments with this object in view the earliest in Virginia in 1631, twenty years before the date of the English "Navigation Act." There is no need, therefore, to attribute to English example the initiation of a shipping policy in the tariff act of 1789. Besides, no part of the British law was copied; our laws were the outgrowth of our own experience and judgment, and in principle differed much from the British. The principle of the famous "Navigation Act" was prohibition, but of our law, permission with duties. While the different systems of ship protection enforced by maritime nations, and Britain in particular, made it necessary to care for our carrying trade, our statesmen had not to be convinced of its propriety, most of them being familiar with the shipping systems of their own States. The people, also, of nearly all the States understood very well the uses and advantages of a merchant marine. They had elected the legislators who had provided such ship encouragement as had been practicable to apply. It was, therefore, not strange that the disposition to foster shipbuilding, an art long established in several States; to promote shipowning, a business reaching back to the settlement of the Colonies; and to extend commerce, a thought present in the American mind

for one hundred and fifty years, should be as general and as strong as to advance agriculture and establish manufactures, since all these interests naturally joined and supported each other in developing the resources of the young nation, and in maintaining its independence. In fact, a planter of North Carolina declared in Congress, in 1789, that the way to advance agriculture was "to promote our commerce," and this by increasing our shipping. There had been six years of trial, a few of them under State encouragement, but the country was satisfied there must be a national policy and a general system before regulations of trade could become effective. Our navigation had little power to extend itself. In short, to have a shipping policy under which American commerce would prosper and promise the accomplishment of great public good, was a well-defined aspiration of the new Republic before James Madison, in 1789, originated in Congress, the first movement there

for.

Colonial Tonnage and Tariff Acts. In the different discussions of the "shipping question," for the past thirty years, the Colonial, and even the State, legislation in aid of the carrying trade, has been overlooked. A single fact may explain the reason; the records are incomplete, and until of late the field has been but little explored. For many of the facts presented in this chapter, we are indebted to a work of inquiry by Professor William Hill, University of Chicago-"The First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, 1893."

In most Colonial charters discriminating duties were authorized. That of Virginia was a type with a duty of 21 per cent. on all goods imported by British subjects and 5 per cent. on all imported by foreigners-presumably in foreign vessels, though the British "Navigation Act" had not then been passed, its date being 1651-1660, the settlement of Virginia being 1610. In 1663 a rum and sugar duty provided shipping protection-in a small way: —

"Whatever vessel, except such as belong wholly to inhabitants of Virginia, brings in any rum or sugar, shall not unload the same except at ports appointed," etc.

While the protective acts of the Colonies were not numerous,

there was no hesitation in granting protection which might establish any industry. Discriminating duties and even prohibitions were resorted to, not only against foreign countries, but the different Colonies. The virtues of "reciprocity," also, were utilized. In 1649 an act of Massachusetts provided for retaliatory duties. Virginia also enacted them, explaining that “Virginia vessels are compelled to enter and pay fees before trading in Maryland ports. This is unneighborly, but Maryland vessels must do the same here until her laws are repealed.” Furthermore, the principle of every nation to be its own merchant was exploited. Massachusetts imposed "double duties, both specific and ad valorem, on all goods which were not imported directly from the place of their growth." To protect her commerce, she also imposed "double rates on all commodi ties brought in by inhabitants of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire," Colonies by which she was nearly surrounded. Still stronger encouragement was given to Massachusetts' shipping by an impost of "5s. per hogshead on all molasses and 60s. per hogshead on all rum imported by for. eigners" in their vessels, of course.

The discriminating duties were in force from 1730 to 1743. The double duties on goods brought through other Colonies were collectible from 1715 to 1774. From having the best protection, Massachusetts came to have the most shipping.

The Powder and other Tonnage Duties. The impost on: shipping was first called powder duties from their being payable in powder. The first such duty was laid by Virginia in 1631, the act providing that "every ship should pay one hundred pounds of powder and ten iron shot for every one hundred tons burden." These were about the average rates in all the Colonies but Georgia, New Jersey, and Delaware, which did not at first lay a tax on shipping. In Rhode Island afterward, tonnage duties seem to have been the only kind collected. When money had become more plentiful, the powder duties were commuted and paid in the equivalent of cash. The dates of powder duties are as follows: Virginia, 1631; Massachusetts, 1645; Maryland, 1661; Pennsylvania, 1683; South Carolina, 1686; New York, 1709. For the other Colonies the time

is uncertain. It was common in framing the acts to set forth the reasons, which were, generally, the public defense. In Massachusetts and New York this tax was a part of the revenue system. In Virginia and Maryland the tonnage dues were made perpetual, and with the export tax on tobacco, furnished a permanent source of revenue, rendering the Governor independent of the Assembly and the people. In 1692 the Mary"The King, however,

land Assembly revoked the tonnage tax. decided that the grant was irrevocable, and that Lord Baltimore should continue to collect his 14d. per ton, which in 1752 amounted to $5000."

All the tonnage duties were clearly for revenue, but the acts were so framed that the shipping interest got a good degree of protection. Most Colonies exempted their own shipping. The northern Colonies had reciprocity agreements, by virtue of which the vessels of each had free entry at the ports of the others. The law of Massachusetts provided that English ships, and those of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island should pay no duties. English ships were subject to the tax for a while, but the owners complained, and the colonists were commanded to cease the distinction between British ships and their own. Most of the Colonies unwillingly obeyed, and almost all ships having a legal right to trade with the northern Colonies got free of these duties. When the tax on British shipping and the duties on British goods had to be abandoned by command of the King, the revenue fell off over half. It would seem, therefore, that the revenue collected from tonnage in the southern Colonies may have been greater than in the northern, as the former had few vessels, and the exemptions were not carried so far. It is not, however, the revenue quality of these duties that interests us most, but the power they had to reserve for colonial shipping the inter-colonial carrying trade.

Shipping Acts of the Confederate Period. With the war of the Revolution and its consequent derangement of trade, and with the enemy in control of our chief ports, there came a respite from the collection of duties of all kinds. Intercourse with England was mutually forbidden, while trade with other