The Congressional Globe: Containing the Debates and Proceedings of the Second Session Forty-Second Congress; With an Appendix, Embracing the Laws Passed at that Session Page: 3,674
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3674
THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
21,
moans in connection with this measure. I
ask him to whom and to what means he
refers ?
Mr. RANDALL. The reporter has my
language.
Mr. SARGENT. All right. If the gen-
tleman did not say that, my question is not
pertinent. If he did, I wish to know to whom
he refers and what were the '' unworthy
means" used.
Several members objected to further inter-
ruptions.
Mr. RANDALL. I am willing to hear the
gentleman from California.
Mr. SARGENT. I say that if I misunder-
stood the gentleman, ray question is not per-
tinent ; but if he said that members on this
floor had used " unworthy means," then as a
member who has advocated this measure
Mr. RANDALL. I said there were wicked
influences inside this Hall and outside of it.
" Mr. SARGENT. That is not specific.
Mr. BANKS. I call the gentleman from
California [Mr. Saksent] to order. I object
to these interruptions.
Mr. STORM. The gentleman from Cali-
fornia [Mr. Sargent] is entirely too sensitive
about Goat Island and subsidies.
Mr. SARGENT. It is not about pig iron.
Mr. STORM. I am notsensitivo on that.
Mr. RANDALL. What do we see? After
the action of the House in rejecting this appro-
priation- we see the Senate with its usual iiber-
ality voting the appropriation; and we see,
much to my surprise, a circumstance to which
I directed the attention of the House a moment
ago; we see the CoramiLtee on Appropriations
ot this Houseāa committee which I supposed
had been appointed to save the public money,
not to squander it; we see that committee com-
ing into this House and recommending con-
currence in this inoreased appropriation. After
the verdict of this House against this scheme,
all parliamentary custom should have induced
the committee lo recommend non-concurrence,
leaving it to the House to reconsider its action
if there should be any disposition to do so.
Mr. Speaker, I say that this appropria-
tion stands not in the line ot' public policy ;
U stands not in the line of good faith to the
tax-payers of this country, '('his steamship
company needs 110 such appropriation; and
there aie other lines needing appi opriations
of money much more, if we are going to enter
upon the broad sea of subsidies.
I hope itie House in obedience to t.lie wishes
of the people will vote this down, so thai this
entering wedge (or enormous expenditure of
public money will not be allowed.
Mr. BANKS. Mr. Speaker, when this sub
jeot was before the House some days sino<\
I restrained myself from taking any part in the
discussion or from giving a vote, and for the
reason that 1 wished there might be souie
attention given to the ordinary commerce of
the country before we entered on the subject
of steamship navigation at large. Since that
time the House has agreed and made a com-
mencement, very slight, 1 concede, but. still a
beginning in the support given to ordinary
navigation. And nothing so much delighted
meas when I heard the words Irom an honor-
able ijierober Irom the Weat, that some con-
sideration should be given to the building of
steamers on the lakes; for I know when the
West turns its attention to navigation and
eommeicu, to the fosteiing of our commerce,
to the establishment of our commerce, then the
battle for the establishment of our commerce
will be won.
1 know nothing of the influences to which
the gentleman frum Pennsylvania [Mr. Ran-
dall] has alluded, but that which affected my
action and vote I have stated. Having wit-
nessed this commencement, and believing it
will be followed by discussion and by success-
ful actiou that will reestablish the ordinary
commerce of the country, I am now disposed
to give my voice and vote for the required aid
for the continuance of steam navigation from
the Pacific coast to Japan and China.
And, Mr. Speaker, I will give substantial
reasons for it. It does not require any lobby
agents or any outside pressure to induce me to
give my vote when I givo it ou these questions.
1 do not forget one fact, that the United States
by an expenditure of from sixty to seventy
million dollars and untold appropriations of
the public land has established three great
railway lines to the Pacific coast. What for,
Mr. Speaker? I submit the question to the
House, for what have these railway lines been
established for which the Government has been
at work for nearly twenty-five or thirty years ?
To reach the Pacific coast and gam the great
wealth of San Francisco, or San Diego, or any
other port south or north? No, sir; it was to
tap the commerce of China and Japan and the
six hundred million wealthy people of Asia
and of Europe. If we stop at San Francisco
what is the value of the railway lines we have
established or are establishing at so much cost?
Of course we must go on. We must cross the
Pacific ocean, we must take the Asiatic trade
or give it to our rivals who are our enemies.
That, is what we must do.
It' it were, as the gentleman from Pennsyl-
vania has said, a detriment, to the peoplo, sub-
jecting them to expenses without any benefit,
then I should say it was a question of political
economy, and we should withhold our hands
from it. But it is not as the honorable gentle-
man has said. The people of the United
States have an interest far before that in-
volved in the expense of continuing and keep-
ing up these lines of ocean steamers. Let
me refer to one fact. In 1859 the superin-
tendent of the Bureau of Statistics reported
that the import trade between China and
Japan and the United States amounted toā
how much? Two hundred and fifty-nine dol-
lars. Only twelve years ago the trade between
these six hundred million people and the
Uuited States amounted to only $259! In
the twelve years succeeding it has run up to
$77,000,000, or an average ot 312,500,000 a"
year. With the slender accommodation we
had then, and the rivalry ot lines to other
parts of the world, our trade has increased to
that exient. If that trade is monopolized,
as it should be, by this country, then that
$77,000,000, which has grown up in twelve
years, in the next twelve years will have
grown to $500,000,000. Does the gentleman
say that is not an advantage to the people of
the country ? Take the single article of tea,
an article more beneficial to the people of
this country than any other one, absolutely
necessary to sustain life, which stimulates the
intellect, which strengthens the body, gives
more endurance to man and woman than any
other article whatever.
Ill 1870 the quantity of tea transported
across the continent by rail was estimated
to be from six to ten million pounds. In
1871 it reached the amount of eighteen mil-
lion pounds; and in 1872 it will exceed
twenty five million pounds. Sir, if we give
the transportation of this article alone to the
people of other countries, we will have to pay
them for the monopoly ; and if they increase
the cost of tea to the people of this country
to the extent of five cents per pound, it will
make an aggregate cost to the people of this
country ot $1,250,000 ;. so that we will have
to pay much more on this item alone than we
pay in the increased subsidy to our own line.
Then there is another consideration which
is more important than auything else which
touches the existence of nations. The policy
of tbe great States of Europe has been and
still is to destroy the nations which they can-
not control. The eyes of the statesmen of
Europe, and of the Powers of Europe, for a
hundred years have been fixed upon China
and Japan; and in our own day we have seeu
initiated and brought nearly to the point of
success the policy tliat was designed to destroy
these two empires, and divide them among the
States of Europe.
Sir, the American policy is of a wiser and
higher character, It isfoundedupontheprin-
ciple of living and letting live, of seeking the-
support and maintenance and increase of
strength of all peoples of all the nations of the
earth. When we had established a great
commerce, when wehad a monopoly of a large
portion of the tonnage on the seas of the world,
and were progressing at such a rate that in
1875 we would have had a majority of the
commercial tonnage of the whole world, the
Powers of Europe were obliged to count us ia
in any great international policies which they
were seeking to establish and to execute.
[Here the hammer fell.]
Mr. WOOD. Mr. Speaker, when this ques-
tion was before the House a few weeks ago, it
was very generally and thoroughly discussed.
All the arguments which could be advanced in
favor of this'increased subsidy were advanced
very ably and very intelligently, as well as those
against it.
I doubt, sir, whether it is possible, upon the
general question involved in the necessity of
developing our foreign commerce, to say any-
thing in addition to what was then said. I do
not propose to reply to the distinguished gen-
tleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Banks,] or
to follow him in what he has said with refer-
ence to this great question which he has sought
to introduce in connection with the very nar-
row and simple proposition before us.
I propose simply to speak to the amendmeut
put upon our bili by the Senate. And I con-
cur with the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Gar-
field,] the chairman of the Committee on
Appropriations, that it is indeed a different
proposition from that which was before the
House. It is essentially and in all regards a
very different proposition, and in my judg-
ment a far worse and more pernicious propo-
sition than th t which we voted on when this
question was formerly before us. The Com-
mittee on Appropriations reported a proposi-
tion to this Hou^e simply confirming the ap-
propiiation to this steamship line to $500,000,
the point at which it originally stood, and
where it stands now. And that, Mr. Speaker,
it will be remembered, was an appropriation
merely for the fiscal year ending SOtli June,
1873. The gentleman from California [Mr.
Sargent] endeavored to amend that proposi-
tion by doubling the subsidy, making it
$1,000,000 for the year ending June 30, 1873.
Upon that amendment the great content and
controversy which is in the recollection of the
House ensued. It was simply whether we
should give $500,000 additional compensation
for one year. Now what lias the Senate done ?
The Senate has practically and in substance
proposed that we shall give to this mail steam-
ship line $1,000,000 for ten years. Substan-
tially this amendment, in which our committee
recommends concurrence, proposes that for
ten years this lineālor its phraseology is so
framed as to exclude all competitionāshall
have $1,000,000 annually for ten years. And
when the gentleman from Ohio [\lr. Gar-
field] tells us that this is a proposition to go
into the market and receive bids for the con-
struction of any competing line, that it is
open to all the world, 1 say no; because it is
declared that all Lhe officers of the line shall
be American citizens, and that the American
Government may at any time, by the payment
of what is termed here a reasonable price,
assume the ownersh'p and control of this line
of steamships. Therefore, sir, there is an
exclusion of all competition.
Ships built on the CK de, or in any other place,
Cannot under any possible circumstances come
in and interfere with this monopoly, with this
control, with this possession which this Amer-
ican Pacific Mail Steamship Company already
holds, and under this bill will occupy to the
exclusion of all opposition or competition,
whether American or foreign, for a period of
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe: Containing the Debates and Proceedings of the Second Session Forty-Second Congress; With an Appendix, Embracing the Laws Passed at that Session, book, 1872; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30899/m1/94/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.