accommodations for that purpose; and it is further covenanted and agreed by the said contractors, and they do bind themselves First, to dispatch an additional steamship from San Francisco on the sixteenth day of each month, and from Hong-Kong on the twenty-seventh of each month, or upon such other days as may be hereafter selected, with the approval of the PostmasterGeneral, the departures to be always so arranged as to alternate at equal and regular intervals with those of the present monthly line during its continuance, and to form in connection therewith a regular semi-monthly mail-service between San Francisco and Hong-Kong via Yokohama. Second, that the time occupied in making each passage between San Francisco and Hong Kong shall not exceed thirty-two days in summer and thirty-five days in winter, including detention at Yokohama, which is not to exceed two days on the outward and three days on the inward voyage; and the time occupied in making each passage on the branch line between Yokohama and Shanghai shall not exceed eight days, including detention at Hiogo and Nagasaki, which is not to exceed twenty-four hours at each port; and further, to perform the service in conformity with such schedule of days and hours of departures and arrivals as shall be approved by the Postmaster-General of the United States. Third, to transport the mails in a safe and secure manner, free from wet or other injury, in a separate apartment in each steamship, to be fitted up for the exclusive accommodation of the mail. Fourth, to take the mail and every part of it from and deliver it and every part of it into the post-offices at San Francisco and Hong-Kong, and the offices of the United States postal agents at Shanghai, (China,) Yokohama, (Japan,) and other Japanese ports of call. They also undertake, covenant, and agree with the United States, and do bind themselves, to be answerable for the proper care and transportation of the mails and accountable to the United States for any damages which may be sustained by the United States through the unfaithfulness or want of care of their officers, agents, and employés; and they do further covenant and agree that they will not transmit, by themselves or their agents, or be concerned in transmitting, commercial intelligence more rapidly than by mail, and that they will not carry, or suffer to be carried, letters or newspapers out of the mail, and they will not knowingly convey any person carrying on the business of transporting letters or other mail-matter without the special consent of the Post-Office Department of the United States; and further, that they will convey, without additional charge, post-office blanks, mail-bags, and the occasional special agent on business of the Post-Office Department exclusively, on the exhibition of his credentials. For which services, when performed, the said Pacific Mail Steamship Company are to be paid by the United States the sum of $500,000 per annum, (being at the rate of $41,666 for each round voyage,) in the currency of the United States, in quarterly payments, on the receipt at the Post-Office Department of satisfactory evidence of the performance of the round voyages embraced in said payments, provided that the moneys payable under this contract shall be paid while the said Pacific Mail Steamship Company or its successors in interest shall maintain and run the line of steamships for the transportation of freight and passengers at present run between New York and San Francisco, via the Isthmus of Panama, by the said Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and no longer, said payments, however, to be subject to deductions, fines, and penalties imposed by the Postmaster-General for failures and irregularities as hereinafter stipulated. It is hereby also stipulated and agreed by the said contractors and their sureties that, in case of failure from any cause to perform any of the regular monthly voyages stipulated for in this contract, a pro-rata reduction shall be made from the compensation on account of such omitted voyage or voyages, And it is further stipulated and agreed that suitable fines and penalties shall be imposed, in the discretion of the Postmaster-General, for delays and irregu larities in the performance of the service. If delays occur in the arrivals of the steamers according to schedule, the company will be fined in a sum not exceeding $2,000 for every forty-eight hours; and should delays occur in their departure, a fine will be imposed not exceeding $1,000 for every twenty-four hours, except in cases of unforeseen and uncontrollable events; and suitable fines shall also be imposed, unless the delinquency shall be satisfactorily explained to the Postmaster-General in due time, for failure to take or deliver the mail or any part of it; for suffering it to be wet, injured, lost, or destroyed; for carrying it in a place or manner that exposes it to depredation, loss, or injury, by being wet or otherwise; and for setting up or running an express to transmit letters or commercial intelligence in advance of the mails, or for transmitting knowingly, or after being informed, any one engaged in transporting letters or mail-matter in violation of the laws of the United States. And it is hereby further stipulated and agreed that the Postmaster-General shall have the power to determine this contract at any time in case of ts being underlet or assigned to any other party, and that he may annul the contract for repeated failures, for violating the post-office laws of the United States, for disobeying the instructions of the Department, or for transporting persons conveying mailmatter out of the mails as aforesaid; and that this contract shall, in all its parts, be subject to, and in all respects governed by, the requirements and provisions of the third and sixth sections of the act of Congress approved June 1, 1872, entitled "An act making appropriations for the service of the Post-Office Department for the year ending June thirty, eighteen hundred and seventy-three," and also of the act of Congress approved the 21st of April, 1808, entitled "An act concerning public contracts," so far as the provisions of the act last cited shall apply thereto; and it is hereby further stipulated and agreed that this contract may at any time be terminated by Congress. In witness whereof the said Postmaster-General has caused the seal of the Post-Office Department to be affixed hereto, and has attested the same by his signature; and the said the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, by George H. Bradbury, president, and their sureties, have hereto set their hands and seals the day and year first hereinbefore written. JNO. A. J. CRESSWELL, [SEAL.] Postmaster-General of the United States. Signed, sealed, and delivered by the Postmaster-General in presence of- PACIFIC MAIL STEAMSHIP CO., [SEAL.] [SEAL.] Attest: W. H. LANE, Sec. pro tem. RUFUS HATCH. [SEAL.] Witness: JENNINGS S. Cox. Signed, sealed, and delivered by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, by George H. Bradbury, president, and signed by George H. Bradbury and Rufus Hatch, in presence of HAMILTON FISH, JR. The Postmaster General, in his official report for 1873, advises Congress that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company has failed to perform its contract, in furnishing the proper steamships and in the commencement of service; but that the additional monthly mail-service has been performed and regularly maintained by said company, for which the sea-postages have been allowed as full compensation, under the general law fixing the rates of compensation for sea-conveyance of mails. The following is the extract from the report: The additional service authorized by the law of June 1, 1872, should have been commenced on the 1st of October, 1873, by American-built iron steamships of not less than 4.000 tons register. The company has, however, failed to comply with its contract, becanse, as is alleged, of unexpected difficulties, which retarded the building of the new steamships now being constructed for this service. In the statement submitted by the company of the causes of its failure to place the new ships on the line on the 1st of October last, it appears that immediately after the passage of the act of Congress authorizing the additional monthly mail on this route, a contract was made for the construction of two iron screw-steamers of upward of 4,000 tons register, the hulls of which are now nearly completed, and that the first of these ships will be launched early in December next. In the month of May, 1872, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company commenced an additional monthly mail-service between San Francisco and Japan and China, which has been maintained regularly, with three exceptions, to the present date; for which service the sea-postages on the mails transported have been allowed as full compensation, under the provisions of the general law fixing the rates of compensation for the seaconveyance of mails; so that a regular semi-monthly mail-service is now being performed on the line, although by steamers of less tonnage than that required for the addition al monthly service. The company has requested that it may be permitted to continue the service as at present, until it can place the new ships of the required tonnage on the line. It is, doubtless, doing all it can, with its present resources, to comply, in good faith, with the requirements of the contract at an early day; but as this service was specially authorized by act of Congress, upon certain prescribed terms and limitations, and the success or failure of the enterprise is a question fraught with important national interests, I have not felt at liberty either to annul the contract for the additional monthly service on account of the failure to commence the same on the day fixed by law, or to give any permission or assurance for a continuance of the contract and service as requested by the company. No good reason is, however, perceived why the company should not be permitted to continue the service as at present, until the new ships are completed and placed upon the line, with the understanding that it shall make no claim upon the additional subsidy, or any part thereof, but shall receive the sea-postage only, as heretofore, in full compensation for the additional service, until the contract shall be fully complied with. The Postmaster-General, in a communication dated April 6, 1874, (addressed to Mr. Spencer, of the committee,) reports the total amount of sea postage paid to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, for extra service not under contract, performed by steamers of said company, between San Francisco, Japan, and China, from September 21, 1869, to November 23, 1873, at $10,437.91, which payments were made under provisions of the general law, relating to ocean mail steamship service, (act of March 3, 1865, and section 269 of the act codifying the postal laws, approved June 8, 1872,) as additional to the special subsidy of $500,000 per annum, as provided and authorized by the act of February 17, 1865. Therefore, the present condition of the amounts paid to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company is the subsidy of $500,000 per annum for monthly service, under act of February 17, 1865, and the sea-postages for extra service, and the semi-monthly trip performed by said company, as a substitute for the service contemplated and provided for by the act of June 1, 1872, but which has not been carried into effect under the terms of the contract of August 23, 1873. This additional subsidy of $500,000 per annum, for the term of ten years, being conditional, has lapsed, but the Postmaster-General has not deemed himself at liberty to annul the contract by reason of the failure to commence the service on the day required by law, nor has he given, as he states in his report, "any permission or assurance for a continuance of the contract and service, as requested by the company.” The company having, therefore, applied to the Postmaster-General for a continuance of the contract, the legislature of the State of California, presuming that the matter would be laid before Congress, in the nature of an application to extend the time specified for the commencement of the service, and, as a necessary consequence, to provide for the continuance of the second subsidy of $500,000 per annum for ten years, remonstrates against the same, and specifies reasons therefor. It nowhere appears that semi-monthly mail-service between San Francisco, Japan, and China, is necessary, or that monthly mail-service between these ports is insufficient for the purposes of trade, commerce, and mail facilities. The amount required for subsidy by the act of February 17, 1865, being $500,000 per annum for ten years, involves the expenditure in gross of $5,000,000 for monthly mail-service during said period, or the sum of $41,666.663 for each monthly trip. Other lines of steamers afford ample communication with China and Japan, which, the legislature of California asserts, find the trade sufficiently remunerative without subsidy. These lines could certainly receive the sea mail postages to the same extent as is now paid the Pacific Mail Steamship Company for extra service and the semi-monthly trip; so that mail-service is not absolutely dependent upon the latter company. It is also probable that, if the additional subsidy is granted, it will operate to crush out fair competition on the Pacific coast in the trade with China and Japan, which will subject the merchants and shippers to high rates of freight and the usual exactions which invariably follow monopoly. It is also publicly known, to such extent as to authorize the cognizance of the committee, that the stock of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company is constantly "jobbed" in Wall street and elsewhere, the fluctuations in quotations being indicative of an absence of approximate value, and characteristic of what is technically termed "fancy stock." This has existed to the entire prejudice of the standard of values, and to the interests of commerce, as well as the total subversion of the intent of Congress in granting the two subsidies, which was clearly to foster and encourage building iron steamships in American yards and by American industry, and for no other purpose. The legislature of California asserts that the Pacific Mail Steamships are engaged in importing Chinese coolies to that State, and that they are almost wholly manned by Mongolians, and to the exclusion of free (white) labor. It is apparent that the word "white" is used in contradistinction to "brown," or to distinguish between the white and brown races-the Americans or Europeans, and the Chinese. This is a very serious charge, and merits the severest scrutiny. It is not in accord with republican institutions that any class shall be held to involuntary servitude and labor, or, by any modification of the term of slavery, reduced to vassalage and helotry upon the territory of the United States. The horrors of the cooly trade are too well understood to need the animadversion of the committee; and while it is beyond question that other nations permit this unholy traffic, it is time that some action should be taken to prevent its practice and incorporation in the United States in any form, guise, or shape. It is notorious and flagrant that Chinese are imported into California and elsewhere on the Pacific coast, in great numbers, under contracts for labor which reduce them to absolute vassalage; that Chinese women are similarly imported for the purposes of prostitution, of the deepest and most revolting grade. Neither men nor women are masters of their own labor and wages, but are owned by companies who farm them out under the most abject terms. Nor do these Mongolians become citizens and tax-payers, contributing to the public welfare; but, on the contrary, they are only domicilians held to service and labor, and when discharged, return homeward. The influx of such a class naturally affects the character, standard, and price of that labor which contributes to the public weal, and which performs the obligations and duties mutually existing between the citizen and the Government. Labor, under such auspices, as in the era of African slavery, becomes degraded, and is rendered wanting in that respectability which freedom and independence demand, in order that peace and happiness may be pursued under the genius of American institutions. The citizen should not be subjected to such calamities, and no special facilities should be permitted which operate, either directly or indirectly, to produce that result. The interests of American ship-building, while undoubtedly of great importance to the country, are not so paramount as to submerge all other considerations; and the subsidies of the Government should produce better results than the inflictions and wrongs of which the legislature of California complains. Granting subsidies to corporations is of very doubtful policy. The views of many leading citizens, who favored that policy heretofore, have materially changed within a few years. It has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the country that more evil than good results from a policy which places the credit of the country at the comparative mercy of corporations or monopolies. There must be some great national interest at stake, lofty in importance and in magnitude, which would justify the practice of granting subsidies to private enterprises, which, when established successfully, become at once independent of public sentiment and of Government control. The expenditures of the Government are being economized in all its branches, and the people are indisposed toward extravagance of any kind. Our finances are not in such condition as to warrant the expenditure of $5,000,000 to further subsidize the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, particularly when no necessity exists for semi-monthly postal service between San Francisco, Japan, and China, and when equal mail facilities may be had, if desired, under general law. Nor should this company be enabled, by Government subsidy, to monopolize trade to the injury of competing commerce, nor to maintain by the same means special facilities for importing Chinese coolies into our territory, thus incorporating another and an equally objectionable form of slavery, to the degradation and injury of free labor. The committee, therefore, report the accompanying bill. |