12 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.

from Puget Sound, though American shipowners offered substantially
the same freight EV difference being that the German bid was
on the basis of the delivery of partial lots, the American of entire cargoes.
 Shipment in this case was arranged for by the contractors, the
Isthmian Canal Commission purchasing the lumber delivered on the
Canal Zone. At the time this lumber was given to the German shipowners
 a large number of steamers and sail craft were lying idle awaiting
 charters in Puget Sound. If the lumber in question had been
purchased across the frontier in Canada while American mills stood idle
in consequence, there undoubtedly would have been sharp complaint
from American lumbermen.
Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. Navy (retired), chairman of
the Isthmian Canal Commission, has stated that hereafter contractors
for materials will be requested to include in their bids the estimated
cost of transportation by both American and foreign vessels.
CARRYING OUR OWN MATERIALS.

The Commission believes that the American people, who are building
 this canal with American money, prefer to have their materials
carried in American and not foreign ships, particularly as there is
always likely to be plenty of American tonnage available. This
delivery of canal supplies, machinery, etc., is a traffic adapted not
only to American vessels registered for foreign commerce, but to a
Jarge part of the very much greater coastwise fleet on both the Atlantie
and Pacific oceans. There are, all told, 3,244,000 tons of shipping on
the Atlantic and 775,000 tons on the Pacific seaboard, and of this a
considerable part is composed of capacious seagoing vessels, Steam
and sail, including scores of general cargo steamships and hundreds
of efficient schooners, especially equipped for coal and lumber carrying.
 Not a few of these vessels are now engaged frequently in trade
to the Isthmus and beyond, and with these great fleets available, with
hundreds of individual owners, there need be no fear of lack of suitable
 tonnage, or excessive rates, or combinations to take advantage
of the Government.
PROPERLY RESERVED TO OUR SHIPS.

Therefore, the Commission has prepared and caused to be introduced
 in the Senate and House of Representatives a bill requiring the
use of vessels of the United States, or belonging to the United States,
for the transportation of all supplies or materials for the Panama
Railroad and the Isthmian Canal, and also of all supplies or materials
for the naval station at Guantanamo. This bill does not extend our
coastwise laws to either Panama or Cuba: it raises no delicate questions
 of jwrisdiction. It simply directs the use of American vessels
for the performance of certain public services. It is a simple, profitable,
 and effective method of encouraging the American merchant
marine, while at the same time protecting certain important public
interests. The Commission urges the immediate enactment of this
measure not only for what it will accomplish, but as a declaration of
purpose that the isthmian waterway is to be American in something
more than name.