When we approach Congress with the modest request to be allowed to buy ships where we can do so upon the most satisfactory terms, Mr. Roach is always on hand to give assurance that it is needless for us to go abroad, for by his skill and his labor-saving processes he is able to supply us with all the ships we require cheaper than they can be bought upon the Clyde. Again when there is a subsidy bill before the Senate or House, our versatile friend is equally ready to go down upon his knees as a beggar, telling Congress that the only way to regain our ocean prestige is to subsidize the companies from whom he expects to get orders, as otherwise they cannot compete with the "pauper labor" of the country he has abandoned. In either case, as will be readily seen, the object is to have us contribute to the prosperity of Mr. Roach. With pride the iron shipbuilders of the Delaware point to the increase of their business, infinitesimal as it is, compared to the ever multiplying production of British shipyards. But whence does this increase arise? From the demand of our people for carrying grain, cotton and other products to Europe, and bringing back merchandise therefrom in competition with the great fleet of foreign steamers to whom we have given the monopoly of that business? By no means. It will be found upon critical enquiry that every one of our home-built iron steamers, excepting two or three in the W. India business, is built for our coastwise trade or for some line that had been subsidized. Even the three or four ships belonging to what is called the "American Line," running between Philadelphia and Liverpool, may be said to be subsidized, as without an entire remission of taxes from the State and the aid of the Pennsylvania Railroad, they could not have been put afloat. Now, why cannot American shipbuilders compete on equal terms with those of Great Britain? That they cannot is evident from the fact that they do not; for it would be unreasonable to suppose that the ability to sail ships, on the part of our seamen, vanished with the departure of wooden vessels. It is true that we need a revision of other maritime laws besides those under discussion, but it is sufficient now to say that we cannot prove our ability to sail ships unless we are permitted to own the ships we desire to sail. Ships are but the tools of commerce, and if we have not the tools we cannot do the work. Foreign mechanics cannot sell us these tools; our own mechanics cannot provide them; therefore the workmen of the sea are idle.