ed. It seems to me that exceedingly important
considerations point to the propriety of this amendment.

With the advent of a new tariff policy not only calculated to relieve
the consumers of our land in the cost of their daily life, but to invite
a better development of American thrift and create for us closer and
more profitable commercial relations with the rest of the world, it
follows as a logical and imperative necessity that we should at once
remove the chief if not the only obstacle which has so long prevented
our participation in the foreign carrying trade of the sea. A tariff
built upon the theory that it is well to check imports and that a home
market should bound the industry and effort of American producers was
fitly supplemented by a refusal to allow American registry to vessels
built abroad, though owned and navigated by our people, thus exhibiting
a willingness to abandon all contest for the advantages of American
transoceanic carriage. Our new tariff policy, built upon the theory that
it is well to encourage such importations as our people need, and that
our products and manufactures should find markets in every part of the
habitable globe, is consistently supplemented by the greatest possible
liberty to our citizens in the ownership and navigation of ships in
which our products and manufactures may be transported. The millions now
paid to foreigners for carrying American passengers and products across
the sea should be turned into American hands. Shipbuilding, which has
been protected to strangulation, should be revived by the prospect of
profitable employment for ships when built, and the American sailor
should be resurrected and again take his place--a sturdy and industrious
citizen in time of peace and a patriotic and safe defender of American
interests in the day of conflict.

The ancient provision of our law denying American registry to ships
built abroad and owned by Americans appears in the light of present
conditions not only to be a failure for good at every point, but to
be nearer a relic of barbarism than anything that exists under the
permission of a statute of the United States. I earnestly recommend
its prompt repeal.

During the last month the gold reserved in the Treasury for the purpose
of redeeming the notes of the Government circulating as money in the
hands of the people became so reduced and its further depletion in the
near future seemed so certain that in the exercise of proper