Calendar No. 363.
Lr Coxon, ! SENATE.

REerorT
No. 854

OCEAN MAIL SERVICE.

MARCH 7, 1910—Ordered to be printed.

Mr, GaLLINGER, from the Committee on Commerce, submitted the
following

REPORT.

"To accompany 8S. 6708.1

This bill is the identical measure which the Senate passed without
2 division on March 20, 1908, with one additional feature, to wit,
Special provision for mail lines to the Isthmus of Panama, which will
be considered later. The terms of the bill (S. 6708) are as follows:
That the Postmaster-General is hereby authorized to pay for ocean mail service,
ander the act of March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, in vessels of the
second class on routes to South America, to the Philippines, to Japan, to China, and
to Australasia, four thousand miles or more in length, outward voyage, or on routes
to the Isthmus of Panama, at a rate per mile not exceeding the rate applicable to
Vessels of the first class, as provided in said act, and in vessels of the third class on
said routes, at a rate per mile not exceeding the rate applicable to vessels of the second
class, as provided in said act: Provided, That if no contract is made under the pro-Visions
 of this act for a line of ships between a port on the Atlantic coast south of
Cape Charles and South ‘American ports, the Postmaster-General shall, provided two
Or more lines are established from North Atlantic ports, require that one of said lines
shall, upon each outward and homeward voyage, touch at at least two ports on the
Atlantic coast south of Cape Charles, regard being had in the selection of such ports
of call to geographical location and to the volume of the export and import business
of the ports so selected: Provided further, That the total expenditure for foreign mail
Service in any one year shall not exceed the estimated revenue therefrom for that year.
The President of the United States in his annual message of Detember
 7, 1909, to this Congress earnestly recommends the passage
of this legislation, as his predecessors, President McKinley and
E resident Roosevelt, haverecommended similar legislation. President
aft said:

Following the course of my distinguished predecessor, I earnestly recommend to
Congress the consideration and passage of a ship subsidy bill, looking to the establishment
 of lines between our Atlantic seaboard and the eastern coast of South America,
38 well as lines from the west coast of the United States to South America, China,
Japan, and the Philippines.” The profits on foreign mails are perhaps a sufficient
Measure of the expenditures which might first be tentatively applied to this method
of inducing American capital to undertake the establishment of American lines of
steamships in those directions in which we now feel it most immortant that we should