3. There remains the third and obvious method: to neutralize the artificial disadvantages imposed upon American shipping through the action of our own government and foreign governments by an equivalent advantage in the form of a subsidy or subvention. In my opinion this is what should be done; it is the sensible and fair thing to do. It is what must be done if we would have a revival of our shipping and the desired development of our foreign trade. We cannot repeal the protective tariff; no political party dreams of repealing it; we do not wish to lower the standard of American living or American wages. We should give back to the shipowner what we take away from him for the purpose of maintaining that standard; and unless we do give it back we shall continue to go without ships. How can the expenditure of public money for the improvement of rivers and harbors to promote trade be justified upon any grounds which do not also sustain this proposal? Would any one reverse the policy that granted aid to the Pacific railroads, the pioneers of our enormous internal commerce, the agencies that built up the great traffic which has enabled half a dozen other roads to be built in later years without assistance? Such subventions would not be gifts. They would be at once compensation for injuries inflicted upon American shipping by American laws and the consideration for benefits received by the whole American people--not the shippers or the shipbuilders or the sailors alone, but by every manufacturer, every miner, every farmer, every merchant whose prosperity depends upon a market for his products. The provision for such just compensation should be carefully shaped and directed so that it will go to individual advantage only so far as the individual is enabled by it to earn a reasonable profit by building up the business of the country. A bill is now pending in Congress which contains such provisions; it has passed the Senate and is now before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries; it is known as Senate bill No. 529, Fifty-ninth Congress, First Session. It provides specifically that the Postmaster-General may pay to American steamships, of specified rates of speed, carrying mails upon a regular service, compensation not to exceed the following amounts: For a line from an Atlantic port to Brazil, monthly, $150,000 a year; for a line from an Atlantic port to Uruguay and Argentina, monthly, $187,500 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to Brazil, monthly, $137,500 a year; for a line from each of two Gulf ports and from New Orleans to Central America and the Isthmus of Panama, weekly, $75,000 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to Mexico, weekly, $50,000 a year; for a line from a Pacific coast port to Mexico, Central America, and the Isthmus of Panama, fortnightly, $120,000 a year. For these six regular lines a total of $720,000. The payments provided are no more than enough to give the American ships a fair living chance in the competition.