34 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.
The Commission would invite especial attention to section 6 of the
British merchant shipping act of 1898:
On proof to the satisfaction of the board of trade that a British ship has during
any fiscal year carried, in accordance with the scale and regulations to be made by
the board of trade, with the concurrence of the treasury, boys between the ages of
fifteen and nineteen, there shall be paid to the owner of the ship, out of moneys
provided by Parliament, an allowance not exceeding one-fifth of the light dues paid
during that year in respect to that ship: Provided, That no such payment shall be
made in respect of any boy unless he has enrolled himself in the royal naval reserve
and entered into an obligation to present himself for service when called upon, in
accordance with rules to be issued by the Admiralty. The scale and regulations
aforesaid may be modified from time to time by the board of trade, with the concurrence
 of the treasury.
This section shall continue in force until the thirty-first day of May, one thousand
nine hundred and five, and no longer, unless Parliament otherwise enact.

AN EXCELLENT PRECEDENT.

Noprotest against this remission of British tonnage taxes exclusively
in favor of British ships has ever been made by the United States,
because it is manifest that these ships have earned a fair title to especial
 national consideration through the rendering of an especial service
 to the Government. The education of these young seamen is
rightly regarded as an important contribution to the national defense.
The Commission, therefore, has provided, in section 9 of the proposed
 bill, for a remission of a part of the tonnage taxes—amounting
to 80 per cent of the increased rate-—to American ships that carry a
certain number of boys who are suitably trained in seamanship or
engineering, and are either enrolled as naval volunteers or indentured
4s apprentices.
The report of the Commission has already emphasized the great
importance of the personal equation in this urgent problem of the
merchant marine. Fhe thorough seaman must begin his calling as a
lad, when his elasticity and adaptability are greatest. Few men
remain at sea who first go when they are over 25 years of age. - The
encouragement offered to the training of American boys is purposely
made a conspicuous part of this proposed legislation. For if a larger
American merchant marine is to be created it will have imperative
need of the pluck, energy, and determination of boys like those who
crowded our new regiments in the war with Spain, but quit when the
fighting was over, to go into machine shops, or to try railroading in
the West, or prospecting in Alaska or South Africa or the Philippines,
 or any other adventurous outdoor life, with plenty of hardship
and danger and some chance of profit. ’
AN UNEXAMPLED LIBERALITY.

No nation in the world has drawn on its treasury so freely as the
United States for the improvement of rivers and harbors and the maintenance
 of an unequaled light-house, buoy and beacon, and life-saving
service. The national expenditures on rivers and harbors from 1888
to 1904 reached the enormous sum of $261,082,852; for light-houses,
for buoys, etc., $23,320,086, and for the life-saving service, $11,657,-952—a
 total for these maritime purposes of $296,060,890—while in all
this time the foreign shipping interests, for whose benefit, largely,
these heavy expenditures were made, returned only $10.458.996 in
tonnage taxes.