more for his crop than he would without the bounty, and that the middleman, the shipper and the foreign market agent have taken all the bounty, and that the Treasury of the United States, which is his treasury, has been exhausted to that extent with no good to him.

No Bounty Should Be Given.-In the second place it is perfectly plain that no law can be passed to give this bounty. The producers, the manufacturers and the laborers are all co-operative parts of the whole national family, and no class can or ought to be favored without the other. But it may be answered that we have given bounties to the fisheries and to the producers of sugar. So we have.

As to fisheries, the bounties were given because we must have for national defence a portion of our citizens always taught and skillful in ships and the work of the sea, so that our navies might find the men ready to carry our flag on to victory, as at Manila and at Santiago, and in other like emergencies that for the present age are likely to come to every nation.

As to the sugar bounty of a few years ago, it was given in order, if possible, to diminish the enormous drain on the earnings of our own people in buying foreign-grown sugar.

If, for example, only one-tenth of the wheat, corn and pork consumed in the United States were produced in our country, nearly every citizen would favor any law tending to increase home production. Happily for us, our farms, mines, forests and manufactured products do not in general fall into these classes. All are abundant, and in every part of our country almost all things necessary to the comfort of our people can be produced, and thus every interest is reciprocally common with every other. A bounty, therefore, on the exportation of the particular products of one kind of industry would be an invidious distinction against all others.

Third.-Postal subsidies have been suggested as an adequate means to aid in the restoration of American shipping. Such subsidies are undoubtedly useful, as other nations have found, but they are

only useful, or, indeed, possible as auxiliary aids to merchant vessels carrying cargoes, and except on great and established lines of transportation, it would be absolutely impossible to give postal subsidies sufficient to enable the vessels to run.

A Real Remedy Proposed.-Fourth.-The only other method to the great national end that almost everybody professes to be for is the one substantially contained in the measure proposed in the last Congress. The measure has been so much misunderstood by some of those citizens who wish to increase our shipping interests, and so misrepresented by those who, from whatever motive, desire to prevent anything being done, that it is proper to state concisely what the fundamental features of the measure were.

1. It provided for the systematic payment, limited to a definite period of time, of sufficient compensation, and only a sufficient one, to American vessels sailing to and from foreign ports, in order to enable them to perform the voyage with a fairly full cargo of American products and returning with a fairly full cargo of imports. Without the cargoes the ship owners could not afford to make the voyages and thus get the compensation. The effect, therefore, would be to help American cargoes in American ships to every foreign port where such cargoes could possibly be disposed of, and thus open to American trade in ports where American vessels are now almost never seen, and where a very few American products are now sold, as well as to increase our trade in ports and countries where we already have some trade carried on in foreign ships and always under the influence of foreign prejudice and foreign competition.

A Bounty Which Everyone May Compete For.-2. This first and main proposition made the business and the compensation open to every American shipbuilder, to every American ship owner and to every American industry. There could be no trusts, pools or syndicates, inasmuch as the sea is open to all, and a single ship with its cargo would be absolutely free and independent. No line or com

bination could be favored, as they must usually be and almost always are when subsidies are given to particular lines for carrying the mails, etc., etc.

The treasury was guarded by the fact above stated that the vessels could not run without a paying cargo, for the compensation was so small that the cargo was indispensable to the profits of the voyage, and the sending of the cargoes is the very thing the people of the United States need to accomplish.

4. The bill required that the ships built and used for this purpose should be capable of naval use in time of need and could be taken at any time by the United States for this purpose.

5. The bill also provided for these vessels taking and educating a certain number of American boys in the various branches of seamanship, so that if the vessels should be able to operate with the aid provided there would always be a large and increasing number of Americans who would be able in time of need to defend the interests of the country.

6. The bill also provided that these vessels should carry the mails of the United States, whenever required, free of charge, and thus direct communication by postal facilities would be established to every port where these compensated vessels should go.

7. The bill also provided that no arrangement should be made under it after ten years from the passage of the act, and it also provided for various and exhaustive limitations and safeguards in the interest of the public service.

The foregoing is, in substance, a statement of the main and important features of the scheme. If we are really in earnest in wishing to take measures to increase our foreign trade and dispose of the vast and increasing amount of our surplus products by having the whole business, so far as possible, in our own hands, protected and advertised by our own flag, and put ourselves in a strong and undisturbed position in case of war between the powers that now possess

the chief carrying trade of the globe, and if we wish to do it in such a way as to help all citizens alike, without favoritism and partiality, I know of no means so sure to accomplish it as the scheme above described.

The state of commercial competition for foreign markets between the producing and manufacturing nations is growing more and more intense, and if anything is to be done to put the United States on a secure footing it should be done quickly. Other nations are perfectly right in taking every peaceable means to increase the markets for the sale of the productions of their citizens, but while our carrying trade remains in the hands of other nations our export trade will always be at a disadvantage, and in case of war between any of the principal powers would be in danger of being injuriously broken up or obstructed unless we shall have our own ships and our own flag to carry it on and protect it.

AN INTEROCEANIC CANAL.

BY HON. WILLIAM P. HEPBURN,

Member of Congress, Iowa.

The subject of a canal connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is one that for more than half a century has engaged the attention of the American people. The desire for its construction seems to grow with the increase of our population, the development of our capacity of production, and the necessity for the expansion of our commerce.

All of the great political parties of the country have demanded this waterway. Boards of trade, chambers of commerce, state legislatures, and the American press have with marked unanimity spoken in favor of the early completion of this canal, and at various periods it has received the serious attention of the government.

There seems to be but little doubt that the states of Nicaragua and Costa Rica will give their consent for the construction of this great work. These states are friendly disposed toward our government and our people, and have interests connected with it that are, in proportion to wealth and population, even greater than ours. It will traverse either the border or the interior of Nicaragua for a distance of about one hundred and ninety miles. It will give to that state a waterway from its capital and its most productive region to the sea. It will place that country on one of the great waterways of the world, bringing it into immediate contact with a large foreign commerce and those who conduct it. The splendid soil and climate of their agricultural region will be seen and known in such a way as to compel immigration, settlement, and largely increased production. In very many ways the state will have advantages not now possessed and