Report of the Commissioner of Navigation to the Secretary of the Treasury

SIR: The law prescribes that the Commissioner of Navigation shall annually report to the Secretary of the Treasury such particulars in the laws relative to navigation as may, in his judgment, admit of improvement or require amendment. In compliance with this requirement various bills amending the laws relative to navigation were recommended in the report of the Bureau for 1895, introduced in both branches of Congress, and in more or less advanced positions for consideration are awaiting the action of the law-making power. Some of these measures have been subjected to the closest scrutiny of the committees of the Senate and the House, and nearly all of them have had the benefit of the criticism of the various interests directly concerned. Some have passed one branch of Congress, and of these some have been reported by the committee of the other branch, so that conference and final action may soon be reached. In view of these considerations, and of the necessarily limited time which can be devoted to maritime matters at the coming short session of Congress, it has seemed desirable, in order to secure practical results, to confine this report mainly to a consideration of the bills now awaiting Congressional action.

THE FREE-SHIP BILL.

The adverse report of the Senate Committee on Commerce on S. 189, repealing the restriction of law which denies American registry to vessels owned by American citizens and engaged in foreign trade, unless built in the United States, takes that measure out of the list of those for which Congressional approval may be hoped before the 4th of March. The reasons in support of that bill were set forth in ample detail in the reports of the Bureau for 1894 and 1895. While their force seems unimpaired, to reiterate them now would be merely to enter upon academic discussion without the hope of immediate practical results. The necessity for the bill remains. The futility of the registry law to encourage domestic shipbuilding for the foreign trade has been illustrated by further investments of American capital in foreign-built ships under foreign flags during the year.

Our maritime rank on the Pacific is now threatened by a new rival, Japan, which, under liberal and progressive laws, has just established a transpacific steamship line to the United States, and with the cooperation of American capital is preparing to extend rapidly the service.

In 1880 the tonnage of American vessels entering the United States from the ports of Asia and Oceanica, including Australia, was 283,395 tons, and of foreign vessels 442,251 tons. In 1895-the latest figures now available-the American tonnage entering was 308,481 tons, the foreign tonnage 657,206 tons. The large and profitable carrying trade once conducted between Asiatic and European ports by American vessels, which seldom entered American ports, has almost entirely passed away. We have already seen the American flag almost wholly disappear from the mid-Atlantic, save as borne by the mail steamers of the American Line, and the figures just presented show that the carrying trade of the Pacific is rapidly slipping from us. Before it is altogether lost it is respectfully suggested that there can be no more proper subject for Congressional inquiry than the conditions of transpacific transportation. It seems reasonably certain that in the immediate future this trade will grow to great proportions. For the control of this trade the United States enjoy obvious natural advantages. The entry of Japan into competition for its control is a warning that a prescient nation appreciates opportunities for trade and maritime rank, of which we have thus far been neglectful, and by progressive legislation hopes to overcome those advantages. Within the last five years Japan's seagoing steel steamships have increased from 13 of 27,701 tons to 53 of 106,383 tons. On the Pacific we have 43 of 68,625 tons.

The Congressional inquiry proposed, it is believed, will confirm the facts and conclusions of the reports of this Bureau for 1894 and 1895. It will show that American capital on the Pacific has been obliged to seek the cover of British and Hawaiian flags. It will show that while Asiatics man the Japanese steamers of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, Asiatics also constitute the crews of the Pacific Mail line steamers, and that differences in wages and in the provisions of seamen are not the chief factors against the United States in any future effort to regain maritime rank. It will show that Japan has adopted the policy of every other maritime nation but the United States, permitting its ship owners to purchase the instruments of commerce on the most advantageous terms and at the same time to use the national flag. It will show the important parts played by first cost of construction, and the factors dependent on it, interest, insurance, and depreciation. It will show that Government encouragement to shipping in Japan is on modern business lines and not, as practiced or proposed in the United States, through tenacious adherence to laws which for years have shown themselves impotent or through an exhumation of eighteenth century policies of discrimination and commercial warfare. But whether these beliefs be well founded or not, the need of early, thorough, and impartial investigation and of action upon facts thus ascertained will not be questioned. (Japanese subsidy law. See Appendix E.)

EXTENSION OF THE ACT ADMITTING THE NEW YORK AND PARIS.

Pending such an inquiry I have the honor respectfully to renew the recommendation of 1894 and 1895 for an extension of the principle of the act of May 10, 1892, under which the steamships New York and Paris were admitted to American registry and the steamships St. Louis and St. Paul were built in the United States. Under existing law it is impossible to establish on the Pacific a mail service even approximating our Atlantic mail service on equal conditions with those found necessary to the recent creation of the latter. The passage of the bill proposed at the coming session of Congress will thus provide early in

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