o take from them
those products which we can use without harm to our own industries and
labor, or the use of which will be of marked benefit to us.

It is most important that we should maintain the high level of our
present prosperity. We have now reached the point in the development of
our interests where we are not only able to supply our own markets but
to produce a constantly growing surplus for which we must find markets
abroad. To secure these markets we can utilize existing duties in any
case where they are no longer needed for the purpose of protection,
or in any case where the article is not produced here and the duty is
no longer necessary for revenue, as giving us something to offer in
exchange for what we ask. The cordial relations with other nations which
are so desirable will naturally be promoted by the course thus required
by our own interests.

The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity will be in
connection with those of our productions which no longer require all of
the support once needed to establish them upon a sound basis, and with
those others where either because of natural or of economic causes we
are beyond the reach of successful competition.

I ask the attention of the Senate to the reciprocity treaties laid
before it by my predecessor.

The condition of the American merchant marine is such as to call for
immediate remedial action by the Congress. It is discreditable to us
as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant in
comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of
business. We should not longer submit to conditions under which only
a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our own ships.
To remedy this state of things would not merely serve to build up our
shipping interests, but it would also result in benefit to all who are
interested in the permanent establishment of a wider market for American
products, and would provide an auxiliary force for the Navy. Ships
work for their own countries just as railroads work for their terminal
points. Shipping lines, if established to the principal countries with
which we have dealings, would be of political as well as commercial
benefit. From every standpoint it is unwise for the United States
to continue to rely upon the ships of competing nations for the
distribution of our goods. It should be made advantageous to carry
American goods in American-built ships.

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