higher wages and the greater cost of maintenance of American
officers and crews make it impossible to compete on equal terms with
foreign ships. The scale of living and the scale of pay of American
sailors are fixed by the standard of wages and of living in the United
States, and those are maintained at a high level by the protective
tariff. The moment the American passes beyond the limits of his country
and engages in ocean transportation, he comes into competition with the
lower foreign scale of wages and of living. Mr. Joseph L. Bristow, in
his report upon trade conditions affecting the Panama Railroad, dated
June 14, 1905, gives in detail the cost of operating an American
steamship with a tonnage of approximately thirty-five hundred tons as
compared with the cost of operating a specified German steamship of the
same tonnage, and the differences aggregate $15,315 per annum greater
cost for the American steamship than for the German; that is $4.37 per
ton. He gives also in detail the cost of maintaining another American
steamship with a tonnage of approximately twenty-five hundred tons as
compared with the cost of operating a specified British steamship of the
same tonnage, and the differences aggregate $18,289.68 per annum greater
cost for the American steamship than for the British; that is $7.31 per
ton. It is manifest that if the German steamship were content with a
profit of less than $15,000 per annum, and the British with a profit of
less than $18,000 per annum, the American ships would have to go out of
business.

2. The principal maritime nations of the world, anxious to develop their
trade, to promote their shipbuilding industry, to have at hand
transports and auxiliary cruisers in case of war, are fostering their
steamship lines by the payment of subsidies. England is paying to her
steamship lines between six and seven million dollars a year; it is
estimated that since 1840 she has paid to them between two hundred and
fifty and three hundred millions. The enormous development of her
commerce, her preponderant share of the carrying trade of the world, and
her shipyards crowded with construction orders from every part of the
earth indicate the success of her policy. France is paying about eight
million dollars a year; Italy and Japan, between three and four million
each; Germany, upon the initiative of Bismarck, is building up her trade
with wonderful rapidity by heavy subventions to her steamship lines and
b