ently_, an
unpatriotic stand, in assuming that the only way in which we
can participate in ocean steam navigation is by adopting a
system of reciprocity with England in so changing our laws
that we may buy her steamers as she now buys our sailing
ships, because she finds it for her interest to do so."

These views, _entertained twenty-one years ago_, were applicable then.
They have been applicable ever since--they are applicable now. They
have been the staple of all that I have ever written on the subject
before the war, during the war, and since its termination.

Iron steamship building was in its infancy in 1857. Its great
development was merely coincident with our civil war. That war was a
horrid nightmare. We found that our navigation interests, with many
other things we could ill afford to lose, the lives of hundreds of
thousands of our young men, vast sums of our money, and not a little
of our morality, were gone. Those lives can never be restored, while
our money may be regained, and it is to be hoped our morality may be
improved, but as to our ships, we simply refuse to replace them with
those that are better.

One argument in opposition to free ships is founded upon the injustice
that would be done to our shipbuilders. Were this true, it might be
said that ship-owners and the general public have some rights that
shipbuilders are bound to respect. The interests of our whole people
are paramount to theirs as were those of the English people in 1849,
when the proportion of their shipbuilders was greatly beyond that of
ours at this day.

In point of fact, however, the suffering of our shipbuilders by the
repeal of the navigation laws, would, from the first, be scarcely
appreciable, and, in the end, would be more than compensated by
increased business.

It would matter very little either to the builders of wooden vessels
or to the public if that provision of the statute which touches that
department, and which really was intended for that alone, should be
repealed or not. Our mechanics build mainly for the coasting trade,
and they build wooden vessels so good, and at such low prices, on
account of the material at their hands, that there is little danger of
any competition with them on the part of foreigners. We never had any
reason, and probably never shall have, to fear the rivalry of other
nations in this particular line of business. So long as it constituted
the only method of construct