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REPORT OF AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE COMMISSION.

most, of those who have freight to ship, or, at the least, of sagacious and
patriotic citizens. It the inquiry of the Commission has done nothing
else, it has in any event proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that
public opinion will loyally and even cagerly sustain Congress in any
frank, equitable, and effective measure that may be adopted for the
restoration of the carrying trade and the expansion of our ocean
commerce.
A QUESTION OF MORE TRADE.

Thoughtful men throughout the entire country have now come to
soe that the question is not merely one of building ships or manning
ships, important though that may be fo large seaboard communities.
Nor is the question, further, one solely of the national defense, though
that of itself would abundantly justify Congressional action. A third
imperative motive for the creation of an adequate merchant marine is
the need of new and wider markets. Without these, there is such a
thing as smothering at home in our own prosperity.
There is one sure way in which these new and wider markets can be
gained. Our own people—merchants, manufacturers, bankers. shipowners,
 working heartily together—must go and get them. We can
not depend upon the foreigners for this—noton the foreign shipowner
more than on the foreign manufacturer or merchant. When the mar-Ket
 is once opened, the foreign ship may take our goods for a consideration,
 which in the long run ix sure to be higher than the price
granted to the foreign manufacturer.
NO MERCHANT WOULD DO THIS.

There is not a department stove in Omaha or Waco which would
dream of intrusting to a rival department store across the street the
delivery of its own coods to its own customers. Th - heads of the two
establishments might be tolerably good friends, hut merchant No. 1
would instinctively assume that, human nature heing as it is, merchant
 No. 2 would keep his good horses and sound wagons for his own
use, and quietly run in his spavined otoeds and worn-out vehicles to
convey the goods of his competitor. And pretty soon merchant No.
1 would expect to have complaints of xhort weight or damaged articles,
or perhaps that the purchases were missing altogether. And then
he would hegin to sce those who were once his customers transferring
their business to his rival—so that that © cheap” foreign service would
have proved a dear service after all.
This is precisely what is happening to-day in South America. The
United States sends no marine delivery wagons of its own to Brazil
or Argentina. Even the American mails must cross the Atlantic
twice on the subsidized liners of England. The result is the inevitable
 one, testified to hefore the Commission by the manufacturers of
Cleveland and Milwaukee, that they find it hard to get into the South
American market and harder «till to stay there—that they can never
depend upon the starting of English and German vessels from New
York, and that there is much breakage as well as miscarriage of American
 goods, confusion. and disappointment. Nor need there be any surprise
 ahout this. The English and German shipowners naturally keep
their best eraft for their own country’s trade and use their inferior
ones for the American. And the result is just what was intended by