ory of years of
effort to establish the principle of general ship-subsidies in the
American economic system properly begins.

The Lynch bounty bill, entitled "An act to revive the navigation and
commercial interests of the United States," made provision for the
remission of duties upon the raw materials entering into the
construction of sailing and steam-ships; for the taking in bond, free of
duty, of all stores used in vessels in sailing to foreign ports; and for
bounties, or subsidies, to American sailing and steam-ships engaged in
foreign commerce, already built as well as to be built: the aid being
extended to those already built because they had been sailed during the
Civil War and since "at great disadvantage."[HE] The amount of duties to
be remitted was to be equal to the amount per ton collected on the
materials required for certain defined classes of ships: on wooden
vessels, eight dollars a ton; on iron, twelve dollars a ton; on
composite vessels (vessels composed of iron frames and wooden
planking), twelve dollars a ton; on iron steamers, fifteen dollars a
ton. Where American materials were used in the construction of iron or
composite vessels, allowance was to be made of an amount equivalent to
the duties imposed on similar articles of foreign manufacture. The
bounties were thus classified: to owners of American registered ships
engaging for more than six months in a year in the carrying trade
between America and foreign ports, or between ports of foreign
countries, a dollar and a half per ton upon a sailing-ship each year so
engaged, and a dollar and a half upon a steamer running to and from the
ports of the British North American provinces; four dollars upon a
steamer running to and from any European port; and three dollars to and
from all other foreign ports.[HF]

The intent of the second bill, "imposing tonnage duties and for other
purposes," was the readjustment of the existing tax upon tonnage so that
it should fall "more equitably upon the different classes of vessels
affected thereby."[HF] It removed all tonnage, harbor, pilotage, and
other like taxes imposed upon shipping by State and municipal authority
(except wharfage, pierage, and dockage); and imposed a duty of thirty
cents per ton on all ships, vessels, or steamers entered in the United
States.

The committee's measures were ably advocated, but they finally went down
in defeat.

* * * * *

In 1872 the Paci