REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION. 27

Our exports to South Africa are now upward of $30,000,000 a year—
almost entirely conveyed by foreign shipping. An American mail
line to Cape Town and other ports, composed of capacious steamers of
moderate speed, has been requested by American merchants interested
in the trade, and is justified by every consideration of commercial
prudence.

FOUR NEW GULF ROUTES.

Three of the ten new mail-steamship lines proposed are to have their
origin on the Atlantic coast; four of the ten on the Gulf of Mexico.
The Commission thoroughly believes that this liberal recognition of
the Gulf ports is demanded by their present, and still more by their
future, commercial importance. Galveston, New Orleans, Pensacola,
Mobile, and the other commercial cities of that great coast line have
excellent harbors, steadily improving rail connections, and behind them
the productive wealth of the Mississippi Valley and the mighty Southwest.
 These Gulf ports ought, in all national equity, to have an American
 steamship line of their own to South America. They ought to
have their own connections under the United States flag with Mexico
and the West Indian archipelago. They are assured of these new
steamship services through the specified mail routes of the proposed
bill, and they will be enabled to create other commercial lines and to
launch and run individual ships under the broader terms of the naval
subventions.

THE GULF'S GREAT OPPORTUNITY.

In spite of climatic advantages, and the nearness of timber, iron,
and coal, there is not to-day one large modern shi vard on the whole
range of the Gulf of Mexico. The foreign ‘y that now convey
the commerce of Galveston. New Orleans, Pensacola, and Mobile are
built abroad, repaired abroad, manned ahroad, supplied abroad. Even
the few of these foreign vessels which American capital owns employ
almost no American labor.
This proposed legislation, in its mail and naval subvention sections,
gives the Gulf States assurance of a new and important industry,
absolutely essentiat to them if they are to realize to the full the magnificent
 advantages opened by the great Isthmian Canal. Under this
Proposed legislation, the Gulf cities can build their own ships, officer
and largely man them—thus giving their boys a new field of employment—repair
 their own ships and supply them with their own materials,
 and thus keep at home all the profits of their ocean trade that
now go over the sea to Liverpool, London, Hamburg, Bremen. Havre,
Marseilles, Trieste, and Genoa.
The Isthmian Canal, built. by American money, will bring not pride,
but humiliation, to the American people if it floats, in foreign commerce,
 only foreign and no American ships.

THREE PACIFIC LINES.

Three of the ten contract mail lines of the proposed bill are on the
Pacific Ocean. Like the Atlantic and Gulf services, they follow natural
trade routes of large present and larger future importance. As the
President of the United States said in the annual message to Coneress.