by every manufacturer, every miner, every farmer,
every merchant whose prosperity depends upon a market for his products.

The provision for such just compensation should be carefully shaped and
directed so that it will go to individual advantage only so far as the
individual is enabled by it to earn a reasonable profit by building up
the business of the country.

A bill is now pending in Congress which contains such provisions; it has
passed the Senate and is now before the House Committee on Merchant
Marine and Fisheries; it is known as Senate bill No. 529, Fifty-ninth
Congress, First Session. It provides specifically that the
Postmaster-General may pay to American steamships, of specified rates of
speed, carrying mails upon a regular service, compensation not to exceed
the following amounts: For a line from an Atlantic port to Brazil,
monthly, $150,000 a year; for a line from an Atlantic port to Uruguay
and Argentina, monthly, $187,500 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to
Brazil, monthly, $137,500 a year; for a line from each of two Gulf ports
and from New Orleans to Central America and the Isthmus of Panama,
weekly, $75,000 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to Mexico, weekly,
$50,000 a year; for a line from a Pacific coast port to Mexico, Central
America, and the Isthmus of Panama, fortnightly, $120,000 a year. For
these six regular lines a total of $720,000. The payments provided are
no more than enough to give the American ships a fair living chance in
the competition.

There are other wise and reasonable provisions in the bill relating to
trade with the Orient, to tramp steamers, and to a naval reserve, but I
am now concerned with the provisions for trade to the south. The hope of
such a trade lies chiefly in the passage of that bill.

Postmaster-General Cortelyou, in his report for 1905, said:

Congress has authorized the Postmaster-General, by the act
of 1891, to contract with the owners of American steamships
for ocean mail service and has realized the impracticability
of commanding suitable steamships in the interest of the
postal service alone by requiring that such steamers shall
be of a size, class, and equipment which will promote
commerce and become available as auxiliary cruisers of the
navy in case of need. The compensation allowed to such
steamers is found to be wholly inadequate to secure the
proposals contemplated; hence, advertise