The Question of Ships

THIS is an admirable little book,¹ and one which we strongly commend to the attention of senators and congressmen. It deals with a subject of vast importance, and in no direction can legislation produce so much direct benefit as by a right treatment of the “ question of ships.” Down to the year 1856, the

United States had rapidly advanced in commercial greatness, and had overcome all the obstacles which had clustered about their path. At that time we were close upon the heels of England, and everything pointed to our speedily passing her in the race for commercial supremacy. Since then our commerce has steadily declined, — a misfortune usually attributed to the civil war, and subsequently to the competition of more profitable forms of investment. These circumstances no doubt hastened the loss of our commerce ; but, as Lieutenant Kelley points out, they are not the true causes of its decline, inasmuch as that began before the civil war. The origin of our difficulties lay in the abandonment of our old policy, which, from the beginning of the century, consisted in surpassing all the world in the quality and speed of our ships and in our naval architecture. With the substitution of iron for wood we began to drop behind, until, with a population of fiftyfive millions, we have a tonnage but little greater than we had when half as numerous. Moreover, our percentage of wrecks is larger than that of any other seafaring people, and our ships and steamers are shorter-lived.

The fact that we pay one hundred and forty millions a year to other people for carrying our own products is sufficient to prove the importance of this question, and there can be no doubt that the suggestions of Lieutenant Kelley furnish the true solution of the problem. They are, in brief, that we should be allowed to buy ships of over three thousand tons where we please and without duty; that the antiquated navigation laws should be revised and in large measure repealed ; that something should be done to protect seamen, and some provision made to educate them; that ship-owners should be relieved of existing burdens ; and that a bureau of commerce, for the registry of ships and for all matters pertaining to our merchant marine, should be established at Washington and placed in the charge of the Navy Department. There can be no question that this policy is sound and its immediate application sorely needed.

The other branch of the subject, the navy, is of course discussed by Lieutenant Kelley with keen professional insight and affection. Here, too, his ideas are thoroughly sound, and we wish that all our public men would read his terse description of the neglect and ignorance displayed by Congress in regard to the navy. As Lieutenant Kelley shows, the naval policy and the commercial policy go hand in hand, and must always be considered together. If a war with a foreign nation ever comes to us, it must be a naval war, and we have no navy. We have ten thousand miles of sea-coast, and no ships to guard them or protect our harbors and great cities. We need a navy to police the seas and watch over and aid our commerce. We have at this moment no power to extort apology or redress from the meanest nation without a naval force, and yet we have no ships of war and no good prospect of any.

There is nothing of greater or more pressing public importance to this country than the immediate construction of a powerful and efficient fleet, and it is a question with which Congress ought at once to deal. A comprehensive policy should also be speedily adopted for naval reorganization. All the departments of coast surveys, lighthouse management, and revenue-marine service ought to be brought at once into the Navy Department, and thus furnish new fields of activity to our naval officers, and save the government from the extravagant multiplication of expensive and overlapping bureaus now scattered through all the departments. The management of yards and the building of a new fleet ought also to be entrusted to line officers, — a course which would take the government workshops out of politics, and place this important task in the hands of highly trained men, whose only ambition would be to turn out ships superior to those of any other nation.

To discuss at length Lieutenant Kelley’s book in a brief notice would be impossible, for the subject of our naval and commercial policy is as large as it is important. But our public men will do well to heed these suggestions, made by an expert, and should reflect deeply upon them in view of the approaching campaign. The party which in good faith pledges itself, next summer, by its platform and its candidates to free ships, seamen’s rights, and the restoration of the American navy will have taken a long stride toward victory ; for this is a living question, and one on which the American people, whenever they have been honestly appealed to, have rendered a hearty response.