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J

OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.

of steamers of 16 knots or upward from a Gulf port to the Isthmus
of Panama. The whole country would benefit from such ‘a line.
New Orleans and Mobile stand in the same relation to the Panama
Canal as does Brindisi to the Suez Canal. The Trans-Andine Railroad
will change the mail relations of South America to North America
and Europe as the Trans-Siberian Railroad is changing the mail relations
 of Asia to western Europe.

A VALUABLE ADDITION TO THE NAVAL RESERVE.

Except on the routes to the Isthmus of Panama, it is practically
certain that the Post-Office Department will require the use of secondclass
 steamships which must be of from 16 to 20 knots speed, and of
at least 5,000 tons gross register as stipulated in the law of 1891, As
a matter of fact these mail steamships will range from 8,000 tons on
the routes to South America to 15,000 tons on the routes to the Orient.
This is about the smallest practicable size of ocean steamships now
constructed for such ocean carrying. A mail steamship of 16 knots
and of 8,000 tons gross register, equipped for passenger and cargo
traffic, would cost about $1,400,000. A steamship of at least 16
knots and of 15,000 tons gross register would cost about $2,500,000.
A full ocean-mail service, such as is contemplated in this bill, would
call for the eventual construction of from 20 to 30 such steamships,
a most valuable addition to the naval reserve of the United States.

A PITIABLE CONDITION.

Last year our exports and imports by sea, according to the report
of the Secretary of Sommaerce and Labor, amounted in round gen
bo $2,721,000,000, of which only $258,657,000, or 9.5 per cent, was
carried in American ships. At the beginning of the current fiscal
vear (July 1, 1909) we bed only 4 American steamships regularly
engaged in the European trade, only 5.in trade with Asia, and none
with South America hi the Caribbean, or with Australia or Africa.
What a pitiable condition that is for a great country like ours to be in.
DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH SOUTH AMERICA.

When American shipbuilders recently opened negotiations with the
Argentine Government for the building of several battle ships and
cruisers these Americans were met at once by a statement from the
Argentine ministry that one very serious objection to the placing of
such a contract in this country was that there were such slow, wretched,
irregular mail and passenger communications between Argentina and
the United States in contrast with the facilities offered by the national
mail lines of Europe, and it was with ereat difficulty that this objection
 was overcome.
If this bill becomes a law, it will no longer be necessary for American
manufacturers and merchants to send their products to South America
via Europe, necessitating transshipment, and covering a route twice
the length of a direct line to those countries, and it will also give the
United States a line of steamships to Australasia, where now the
American flag is never seen and where a large commerce can be developed.
 It seems to your committee that an enlightened self-interest,
as well as a patriotic purpose, may well be invoked in behalf of the
proposed leeislation