I refer to the Navigation Laws and Protective Tariff of the United States. The former, first enacted in 1792 and revised and added to since that time only in unimportant details, have long out-lived the usefulness they may once have possessed, and completely fail to meet the requirements of the changes in ocean navigation that have taken place during the period of more than a century that has since elapsed. As is well known, they prohibit an American citizen from owning a foreign-built merchant ship. Meanwhile the Protective Tariff so increases the cost of living and with it the cost of the labor and materials that go into the construction of a modern ship, that the American ship-builder cannot produce a steel or iron vessel at anything like a cost that will enable her to compete successfully with a ship of the same class constructed in a European shipyard. Were it not for this hindrance, the immense natural advantages of such broad, deep waters as those of the Delaware and Chesapeake, where the finest coal and iron ore are within easy transportation, and the abundant food supplies of the neighboring garden States and of the West which are easily accessible, would make them ideal spots for the construction of ships. So it will be seen that the Navigation Laws and Protective Tariff are the mill-stones between which the American ship-owner and ship-builder at present find themselves ground with an ever-receding prospect of escape from this cunningly devised dilemma. Meanwhile, the ensign of the United States no longer contributes in any marked degree to the gayety of foreign seaports; whereas, Great Britain, with inferior coal and iron ore, compelled to import the food and clothing material for her shipwrights from distant lands, and with certainly no keener intelligence nor greater energy among her ship-owners and builders, but guided by the enlightened policy of Free Trade, sends her endless procession of merchant ships, both sail and steam, to every seaport upon the globe. CHAPTER XXI THE LATER BRITISH TEA CLIPPERS In what may be called the ante-Suez Canal days, China was a pretty comfortable place to be in. The East India Company, with its pomp and grandeur, had passed away, but the older residents treasured the picturesque traditions of former times, and the comfort and luxury of the old days still survived.