The same argument may be made for the maintenance of swift lines to both coasts of South America, where we have the Monroe Doctrine and the Panama Canal to defend. If we establish these lines, a war of subsidies is to be expected, and the well-established and powerful companies already in the trades will be wholly unscrupulous in their opposition, not because their present profits are high, but because they are low; a division of the traffic will still further reduce the profits which are already too narrow for comfort. We may be sure, too, that extravagance and inefficiency of the Collins kind will be found in the management of some of our companies; but as a diplomatic and military measure the experiment seems to be worth making. We have a very good precedent in the action of Germany in establishing a line to its Pacific possessions by a subsidy of a million a year, which is given for the precise reasons urged herein. It will cost the United States many times as much as it does Germany, but one who looks at the matter broadly may well suppose that such an increase of expenses, avowedly made as a measure for increased military efficiency, might be worth while, in the end, as a peace measure. For we shall be obliged in any event, to go on increasing our naval budget to keep even with the growth of European navies, until the war burden becomes intolerable in Europe as well as in the United States; and then we shall have measures for preserving peace more rational than those now in vogue. The sooner the burden is made intolerable the better. But while we can provide an ample fleet of naval auxiliaries by means of subsidies, if we are willing to pay the price, let no one suppose that such a measure will give the country any share of the world's traffic worth consideration, not to more than mention supremacy upon deep water. One method by which the Merchant Marine Commission thought to increase American sea power is memorable. A heavy tonnage tax was to be laid upon all ships coming from foreign countries to American ports, and the money so raised was to be paid to American ships in the foreign trade in return for carrying a certain proportion of American citizens enrolled as members of a corps of naval volunteers. The measure looked toward an increase in the number of American seamen, but it did not become a law.