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from the consequences of civil war as did the industries of those States which were the scene of conflict and in material things suffered most heavily from the battles and marches of contending armies. This opinion is corroborated by the line of argument advanced in the most important contribution to naval literature in some years, Capt. Mahan's volThere has been no such recovery because in legislation there has been no adequate recognition of industrial forces which were already in operation during the war and intensified war's effects upon our merchant marine in foreign trade, and are now even more potent than thirty years ago.

ume.

The tonnage of all descriptions on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts during the decade has fluctuated in volume slightly, but is now not materially less than in 1884. The tonnage of the Western rivers is steadily decreasing for manifest reasons. The tonnage of the Pacific coast shows nearly uniform gains and is now more than one-third greater than in 1884.

In 1884 the tonnage of the lakes was only 17 per cent of the total tonnage, while at the end of the last fiscal year it was over 25 per cent of the total. That portion of Appendix K devoted to Canadian statistics indicates that our lake tonnage is winning a steadily increasing percentage of the carrying trade on the lakes between Canada and the United States in comparison with vessels under the British flag.

REPORTS OF THE WORLD'S PRINCIPAL STEAMSHIP COMPANIES.

Attention is invited to Appendix L, containing the latest available annual reports of the managers to the stockholders of eleven of the principal steamship corporations of the leading maritime nations. On many of the legislative and business problems connected with the restoration of the American merchant marine these reports, it is believed, will furnish sufficient information of an authoritative and practical nature to justify the considerable space devoted to them. The reports are of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (American); Cunard Steamship Company, Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, and Pacific Steam Navigation Company (British); North German Lloyd, and HamburgAmerican Company (German); Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, and Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes (French); Società di Navigazione Italiana (Italian); Società di Lloyd Austriaco (Austrian), and the Netherlands-American Steamship Company (Dutch). The operations of these corporations reach the trade of all the continents. Their combined fleets amount to 1,600,000 gross tons, or one-tenth of the world's seagoing steam tonnage, and an even greater proportion of the steam tonnage engaged in foreign trade. The value of their fleets is upward of $130,000,000, which, taken with the statistics of the world's tonnage in Appendix O, indicates that the world's seagoing tonnage, steam and sail, is valued at $2,000,000,000 in round numbers, and employs in the neighborhood of 650,000 men. [For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1893, the Interstate Commerce Commission states that the total capital invested in railroads of the United States was $10,500,000,000, of which $5,225,000,000 was funded debt.]

The reports cover a period in which the losses sustained in consequence of the outbreak of the cholera had not entirely been made good, and the financial showing is thus doubtless poorer than it will be for the current year.

The principal sources of revenue, principal items of expenditure, rates of dividends, valuation of vessels, relations to government, projects for

future construction, relative importance of subsidized and free lines, rates per mile of mail compensation, speed of vessels, trade conditions in various countries, and other matters relating directly or indirectly to navigation from the point of view of business profit are set forth in more or less detail.

Nearly all the corporations included employ some of their steamships in carrying government mails, and receipts are accordingly larger than in the case of corporations performing no government service, but, on the other hand, expenditures for coal are also larger, owing to the conditions as to speed in mail contracts.

THE REVISED. RULE OF THE road.

The most important work performed by the International Marine Conference, which assembled at Washington in October, 1889, with Rear-Admiral S. R. Franklin, U. S. Navy, as president, was the revision of the international regulations to prevent collisions at sea. As a result of extended deliberation and discussion the conference finally agreed upon numerous modifications to the international regulations in force, and after the dissolution of the conference the delegates sub mitted the proposed regulations to their respective governments for approval. The modifications were for several years the subject of extended correspondence between the governments which participated in the conference, and up to the present calendar year no positive action toward putting the new regulations in force had been taken. Congress in 1890 enacted the new regulations. with the proviso that they should go into effect upon a date to be fixed by proclamation of the President.

The correspondence with other nations disclosed general and apparently insuperable objections to article 9 of the proposed regulations, which relates to fishing vessels. This Bureau became convinced that the repeal of that article was, accordingly, the first step necessary to give practical effect to the important work of the conference. A bill to that effect was drawn and submitted to Rear Admiral Franklin, as president of the late conference, and to the six other delegates, Capt. W. T. Sampson, U. S. Navy; the Hon. S. I. Kimball, General Superintendent of the Life-Saving Service; Capt. James W. Norcross, Capt. John W. Shackford, W. W. Goodrich, esq., and Clement A. Griscom, esq., who represented the United States at the conference, and, with their approbation and the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, was introduced in Congress. Pending its consideration notice was received through the proper official channels that the British Government was prepared to put in force the new regulations, with certain minor modifications, in which other maritime nations had concurred, and suggesting March 1, 1895, as the date for a general enforcement of the revised regulations. The modifications, including a repeal of the objectionable article 9, were incorporated in a bill, which was submitted to Rear Admiral Franklin and his American colleagues at the conference, and with their approval was introduced in both branches of Congress, passed, and approved by the President. To remove any possible doubt as to the effect of the repeal of the article relating to fishing vessels a bill was subsequently passed and approved continuing in force the present international regulation concerning lights on these vessels. In July the President issued his proclamation fixing March 1, 1895, as the date when the revised regulations shall go into force. The steps taken by the Bureau in this matter have all been upon consultation with the

American delegates to the conference and have had their support and approval. The Revised International Regulations are printed, with the proclamation, in Appendix Q, principal changes from the regulations now in force being indicated by italics. The action of the President has been communicated to other nations which were parties to the Washington conference, and it is the understanding of this Bureau that other governments are taking the necessary steps to put the new regulations into effect next year.

The American delegates to the conference believe that the revised regulations will afford greater security to life and property at sea, and the action taken by the President and Congress in the matter may thus be regarded as a substantial service to navigation.

DERELICTS.

The Washington International Marine Conference of 1889 prepared an elaborate project for an international agreement for the marking and removal of derelicts in certain portions of the North Atlantic Ocean, and the American delegates to that conference recommended that correspondence be entered into with the maritime powers to establish such an agreement. This Bureau is officially informed that under authority conferred by joint resolution of Congress, the Department of State, under date of January 13, 1894, notified the British Government that "the Government of the United States is prepared either by taking the initiative or by acting in concert with Great Britain to invite the principal maritime governments to consider an international agreement for the reporting, marking, and removal of dangerous wrecks, derelicts, and other menaces to navigation in the North Atlantic Ocean outside the coast waters of the respective countries bordering thereon." Under an equitable arrangement a large proportion of the expense and labor of actually carrying out an agreement for the removal of derelicts would fall to Great Britain, and as the British Government had not responded up to September 13, 1894, the subject of the proposed concert of action remains open.

The American delegates to the Washington conference also "earnestly recommend that a steam vessel of about 800 tons displacement be built which shall be especially fitted for and adapted to the service of taking the ocean in bad weather for the purpose of blowing up or otherwise destroying wrecks and derelicts or bringing them into port, such vessel to be built under the direction of and attached to the Navy." Consideration of this recommendation appears more appropriate by the Navy Department than by the Treasury Department. Indeed the Treasury Department, certainly the Bureau of Navigation, has no practical machinery either to mark derelicts or to destroy them. For some years the maps and bulletins of the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department, which are accepted as standard publications by the maritime world, have indicated the position of wrecks and derelicts, and vessels of the Navy from time to time have been engaged in destroying them. For all practical purposes, therefore, the subject of derelicts appears as relegated to the State and Navy Departments. For purposes of record it is desirable that this Bureau be furnished with the marine papers, whenever feasible, and in other instances with such information as can be obtained, of American merchant vessels which may be destroyed as derelicts by vessels of the Navy,

CONCENTRATION OF MARINE BUREAUS.

I have the honor respectfully to suggest that bureaus and branches of the Treasury service established to regulate and promote commerce be assembled under the immediate supervision of one Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. This organization of the Treasury, it is believed, would secure prompter, more efficient, and more economical administration of the laws relating to the merchant marine, and would satisfactorily meet what appears to be a popular wish.

The agitation for the creation of a new department of the Government, to be known as the department of commerce, with a new cabinet officer at its head, seeks a proper object by an impracticable method. The Government must carry on its direct dealings with the merchant marine mainly through the collectors and surveyors of customs responsible to the Secretary of the Treasury. To subject them at the same time to the orders of another cabinet officer is so obviously objectionable that the reasons need not be presented. Clashes of authority between the Departments would be inevitable from such an arrangement.

The proposition that the heads of the several Treasury bureaus having charge of the affairs of the merchant marine be combined, with certain other gentlemen in or out of official life, into a marine board, appears to be equally objectionable. From the nature of their widely different duties the heads of the several Treasury bureaus can not be expected to be, and as a matter of fact are not, familiar with the work performed in each other's bureaus, and are not, therefore, qualified to give advice collectively concerning the bureaus of one another. From such a board, made up of men each assigned to a special line of work, practical results could not be expected. In operation, such a board would surely lead to delays in the administration of the laws and to increased expenses consequent upon its establishment, for which such advantages as might follow from its debates would be an altogether insufficient compensation.

The arrangement of the Treasury bureaus, which I have the honor to suggest, possesses all the advantages of the two projects referred to, and is open to none of the objections to those schemes. At present the Marine-Hospital Service and the Steamboat-Inspection Service are assigned to one Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; the RevenueMarine Service to another Assistant Secretary; and the Bureau of Navigation, the Life-Saving Service, and the Light-House Board to still another Assistant Secretary. That these and other branches of the merchant-marine service have acted in accord and without friction is due to the courtesy and consideration of those responsible for the administration of the Treasury and its bureaus, rather than to any merit in the system, which creates opportunities for delays and conflicting action.

The compact organization and closer co-operation of all the marine bureaus proposed would at the same time afford the opportunity for concentration of energies in other branches of the Treasury Department. By simplifying work it well might disclose opportunities for retrenchment and increased efficiency which under the system of divided control could not appear. Either through neglect or through the pressure of other matters deemed of greater importance by the people, as one chooses to regard it, the nation has fallen during the last thirty years far below the rank it should hold among maritime powers. Even after general laws necessary to enable Americans to enter again into compe. tition for the over-sea carrying trade have been enacted, sedulous atten.

tion and intelligent study of details will be needed daily on the part of the administration to give our merchant marine the advantages which the shipping interests of other nations possess in administrative departments or bureaus, observant of every step of progress abroad and equipped for prompt and harmonious action.

The organization of Treasury bureaus proposed would be welcomed. by the public as the proof of the purpose of the administration to promote systematically the development of our merchant marine, not only by advocating liberal laws in accord with modern requirements, but also by the closest and promptest attention to the daily needs of navigation.

The plan has the further advantage that, if some years hence it should prove desirable to establish a department of commerce, similar to the British board of trade, with a corps of officers at the ports of the country, responsible to the secretary of commerce, with local boards and the other machinery requisite to make such a department effective, the proposed Treasury consolidation would furnish an organization already in working order from which such a department could be constructed. The Secretary of the Treasury has sufficient authority to effect this concentration, and if it can be done without any undue interference with the existing allotments of official duties within the Department it is suggested that the authority be exercised. The matter is deemed of enough consequence to administration and of enough value to our merchant marine to observe that, should such concentration be inadvisable on account of the present allotment of Treasury duties, the Secretary of the Treasury would be warranted in requesting Congress to provide for an additional Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in order to carry out the project. The expense of the creation of this office could be saved to the Treasury in economies which should ensue from placing the marine bureaus under one Assistant Secretary, and the saving to commerce in the more expeditious execution of the marine and navigation laws should be considerable.

CONCLUSION.

The statistical information required by the statute creating this Bureau is appended to this report.

The list of merchant vessels of the United States for the year ended June 30, 1894, prepared by the Bureau in accord with the statute, is in the printer's hands, and, if practicable, will be issued to those materially interested in navigation in December.

In the discharge of the various daily duties of the Bureau the assistance of Mr. T. B. Sanders, Deputy Commissioner, who organized the Bureau and for ten years has been constantly in its service, has been of the greatest value. The special recognition by Congress at its last session of his usefulness to the Government was merited by his valuable labors and qualities as a public servant.

During the fiscal year the personnel and classification of the clerical force have been changed in a few cases with a view to promote the efficiency of the Bureau, and acknowledgment is here made of the industry and fidelity of the clerks of the office.

EUGENE TYLER CHAMBERLAIN,

Commissioner,

The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY,

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