lunteers; one-sixth of the crews to be citizens of
the United States or "men who have declared their intentions to become
citizens;" ships to carry the mails when required free of charge; all
ordinary repairs to be made in the United States; the ships to be in
readiness for Government taking for naval service in time of need. The
payments in this class were to be made on contracts for a year at a
time, renewable from year to year; and no vessel was to receive them for
a longer period than ten years. The retainers to officers and men of the
merchant marine and deep-sea fishing-ships as inducements to enroll as
naval volunteers, were fixed at rates ranging from a hundred dollars a
year for the master or chief engineer of a large steamship to
twenty-five dollars for a sailor or fireman, and fifteen dollars for a
boy, these retainers being independent of their regular pay. The
provisions relating to tonnage revenue increased the tonnage taxes on
all vessels, American and foreign, entering American ports, with a
rebate of eighty per cent of the tonnage duties allowed to American
ships carrying American boys as apprentices and training them in
seamanship or engineering for the merchant service and naval
reserve.[HU]

The minority report, signed by three of the four Democratic members of
the commission, although outlining measures of relief which, in the
judgment of the signers, would "accomplish substantial and permanent
good without injustice to any other American interest and without doing
violence to any fundamental principle of right or of organic law,"
proposed no bill. While the minority "saw objections to the entire bill"
recommended by the majority, they were disposed to withhold any
opposition except to the sections providing for direct subsidies. These
they declared to be "so obnoxious to Democratic principles and to the
economic sense of the country" that they were compelled to enter their
"earnest protest against their enactment into law." Instead of
subsidies, the remedial legislation which they outlined included: a
return to the discriminating-duty policy; and the putting on the free
list of all materials which enter into the construction of ships no
matter whether intended for foreign or domestic trade,--thus admitting
ships built from foreign materials, in whole or in part, to the
coastwise trade, from which they are now excluded. The minority held
also that it would probably "be necessary to remove the duties