Ever since the Civil War efforts have been made to induce Congress to modify the navigation laws far enough to enable Americans to buy ships in the cheapest market and sail them under the flag. It is said that this would give our shipyards so much employment in repairing the foreign fleet so to be purchased that our builders would soon learn how to set afloat ships as cheap as any in the world. It is not easy to treat seriously one who supposes that repairing tramps would develop the distinctive type of ship able to produce results in ton-miles, which is imperatively needed; but when it is remembered that free trade in ships quickly drove the British from the sailing ship to the screw steamer, the proposition looks attractive. For free trade--the necessity of swimming unaided in rough water or drowning--might compel the American builder to produce the revolution-making ship for which we are to hope. We now come to the policy of paying direct bounties as a means of creating a merchant marine; and nowhere are candor and accuracy of statement more important. Bounties were paid in the colonial days. Virginia gave a subsidy of tobacco to induce her people to build ships, and they built one ship. When the whale fishery was depressed, just after the Revolution, Massachusetts gave a bounty on Massachusetts oil, with the result that the market was flooded, and the fishery was depressed more than ever. In spite of a bounty paid on oil by Rhode Island, her sailors continued to favor the slave-trade. For some reason those who favor subsidies as a means of reviving our shipping never quote these facts. Of the effect of subsidies upon the Collins Line and of other subsidies, something has already been said. The first grant to the Cunard Company was made for military and diplomatic purposes only, but when subsidized American ships appeared, the Cunard grant was increased to maintain the British flag in the trade. That is a fact beyond dispute. It is manifest that the subsidy was of benefit to the receiver. It helped the company to build improved ships. It gave the builders some experience. It provided schools for the instruction of seamen in the art of handling steamships. The subsidizing of the Royal Mail, and of the lines to other parts of the world, where private enterprise was unequal to the occasion, created an increase of commerce as well as some addition to the shipping of the country.