{2 REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.

by treaties to virtually surrender our business on the high seas. At
present the larger part of oar exports are food and clothing products,
either in the raw or finished state, and the countries which are our best
customers can not afford to discriminate against our goods, because this
would only tend to increase the cost of necessaries to their own people.
The strongest argument presented against this policy is the fact that
about 40 per cent of our imports are of goods EY are now on the
“free list,” and that the only way to enforce discrimination in respect
to such imports would be to increase the *“dutiable list.” Of course,
we do not advocate an increased cost of imported goods to the American
 consumer, but with the treaties out of the way we might meet
this difficulty by imposing a low rate of duty on many of the imports
when brought in foreign bottoms, but still to be free from tariff when
brought in our own ships, and thus enable American vessels to compete
 successfully with foreign ships in freight charges and at the same
time minimize the danger of increased cost to the consumer. What
we want to do is to give some assurance to our foreign-going ships
that they will have return cargoes, which would go far toward settling
the question of the carrying of our exports in our own bottoms. But
we are not willing, nor do we think it necessary, to commit ourselves
to the proposition that anything now upon the *‘free list” should be
made *‘dutiable.” We prefer to take the chances of aiding our
merchant marine by discriminating duties upon the 60 per cent of
:mports now on the ‘*dutiable list.”
This, we believe, would result in permanentassistance to our languishing
 shipping interests without imposing any additional burdens upon
the public. We wish to aid our merchant marine by reducing burdens,
not increasing them. It is also shown by the hearings before the
Commission that there is a material difference between the cost of construction
 in American shipyards and in foreign. A part of this difference
 is due to the greater cost of labor, but this is largely overcome
by the greater efficiency of the American artisan and the use of
improved tools; but it appears to us that the unnecessary and exorbitant
 tariff imposed upon steel and iron products is one of the greatest
Impediments to cheaper ships in American yards.
The steel manufacturers in this country are the richest and best
equipped in the world, and have long since outgrown the necessity, if
any ever existed, for the protection accorded to ‘infant industries.”
It 1s a shame and an outrage upon the American people that manutacturers
 in this country should be able to sell in foreign countries any
products of their factories at lower prices than are charged their own
countrymen at home. This condition applies with especial force to
the subject now under consideration. It has been conclusively shown
by testimony before this Commission that materials which enter into
the construction of ships are sold by our factories and laid down in
foreign shipyards for a price far below that charged at the mills to
our own people—a condition which could not exist but for the unjust
provisions of our tariff laws. Mr. Edward S. Cramp, of the Cramp
Shipbuilding Company, in May, 1904, stated to the Commission that
foreign shipbuilders were then paying only about $25 per ton for
materials that cost the American shipbuilder $40 per ton, *“a handicap
against him of $15 per ton.”
Mr. James C. Wallace, of the American Shipbuilding Company,