subsidy--seventy five thousand dollars per annum--for a distinct
Hawaiian service.[HC] The contract for this service, also advertised
for, went to the California, Oregon, and Mexican Line.

* * * * *

Thus far the granting of postal subsidies for the establishment of
steamship lines alone had engaged the advocates of State aid to American
shipping. Now was agitated the institution of a general subsidy system
as a means of fostering the rehabilitation of the merchant marine of all
classes in ocean service, sailing-ships as well as steamers. The
situation had become acute. Through the great loss of tonnage in the
Civil War, and through the steadily advancing change from wood to iron
in ship construction and from sail to steam propulsion, the American
merchant marine had been brought distressingly low. From 1861, when the
United States was standing second in rank among the nations in the
extent of her ocean tonnage, to 1866, this tonnage had declined from
2,642,648 to 1,492,926 tons: a loss of more than forty-three per cent;
while England, the first in rank and chief competitor, had in the same
period gained 986,715 tons, or more than forty per cent. Moreover, of
this increase in English tonnage, a large percentage had been in
steamers, one ton of which class was estimated to be equal in
efficiency to three tons of sailing-ships; while, by substituting
largely iron for wood, England had gained a still further advantage in
her much larger class of iron vessels, doubly as durable as those of
wood.[HD]

The matter was brought up in Congress by a resolution of the House,
March 22, 1869, calling for the appointment of a select committee, "to
inquire into and report at the next session of Congress the causes of
the great reduction of American tonnage engaged in the foreign carrying
trade, and the great depression of the navigation interests of the
country; and also to report what measures are necessary to increase our
ocean tonnage, revive our navigation interests, and regain for our
country the position it once had among the nations as a great maritime
power." Of this committee Representative John Lynch of Maine was made
chairman.

The committee gave a series of hearings mainly in Atlantic seaboard
cities, and submitted their report on February 17, 1870, accompanied by
two bills recommended for passage; the one, a bounty bill, the other,
relative to tonnage duties. With these measures the hist