mature or cheapen
when but a few years are assigned to it, and when there is no
certainty that it will survive the life of a single ship. Companies
undertaking the mail service under such circumstances must be paid
larger sums for their general establishment, that they may be enabled
to meet the exigencies and caprices of irregular legislation, which
may at the close of their contracts suddenly throw a dozen good ships
out of employment. Every well-regulated and efficient company
necessarily builds new steamers through all the stages of its
existence; and when the term of its service expires, necessarily has
several partially new ships. If the term of service is to be short,
and if there is no rule by which those who do good service on a line
are to have, in renewing contracts, the preference of new and untried
parties, then it is reasonable to infer that they can not themselves
incur the expense of so large an establishment of new and useless
vessels, and that their service is either to be inefficient and
unreliable, or that the department must pay a larger price than
necessary under a judicious and fixed system. The want of a reliable
system operates injuriously both on the department and on the
contractors. It subjects us to expedients, and to all of the evils of
constant lobbying and legislation on the subject. And one of the first
wants of this system is an extension of the term of contracts. The
period hitherto assigned has not been long enough for the proper
development of the service. The short term is a constant premium for
building an inferior class of vessels, which shall have become
worthless by the time that the contract expires, so as not to entail
loss upon the company. Such vessels are ever unfit for the mails or
passengers. Short terms also keep the subject continually before
Congress and the Executive Government, and foster that extensive and
depraved lobbying which has wrought so injuriously on our legislation.
Moreover, there is no reason why the term of service should not be
extended, when it will certainly simplify and cheapen it, if, as I
have assumed, the progress of engineering is not such as to throw
well-built ships out of use within twelve years, or in any way
introduce improvements by which the Government could get the service
at lower rates. Nor have we any reliable hope for the future. We wait
until commerce has been perverted into unnatural channels, and then
become suddenly and galvanica