We Shall Some Time Build Ships For The World

"Our transatlantic kinsmen are just at present oceupied upon the modest and promising task ol teaching thelr grandparentg the way to make barges. Qireat Brltain, whlch bellevee hersell to bc the mistress of the seas, and is so far entitled to do so as is warrant -d by tlie posession oi' the most powerful uavy, and eleven and a halt' out of the twenty-two inillions constltuting the world's mercantlle tonnage, Is now belng Lnstructed by a citlzen of the United States in the art of deslgning and building Bteamers for the oceancarrylng trade. of conrse, there is nóthlng prepostcrous in this fact, and it is quite possible that our ship-buüdand shJp-owners hare hitherto been workins; upon a wrong principie, but to put it in the mlldest way, we don't thlnk it very likely." Fren' t'e enactmeni of our iüiv.ition la-.vs. Borne one hundred and two yeara ago, nntll a short time after the abrogatlon of the restrictiva ciauses whlch enabled as to take twothirds of the carrying trade between country and England, we were continually teaching that country to in ke vessels of all kinds. Their only dillkuity was that tiiey were too pig .npt our improvementa, and as a con they always behind. When, under the combined influe oí heavy si:h'-i to our newspaper writers, and di'pi' oí cruieers of the Alabama elas. they had held their shipbulldlng and sliil saillng trades of the u-orld sonie lime, they commeneed to forget The inferior position held liy them ihrouuh the Hrst half of this century, and aseumed that no other people could build ships. Bul time is coming when a Congress neit her owned by English nor capitaltets' interests will take as mucb care for the poor man, or tlu small part wlisning to go into the foreiffn trade with a fifty or one hundred ton schooner, as tor the large city or combinatlon of eapltaielta able to order hall a down vssi'N at a million each. Then we will be as mm-h ahead of Ensyland in out shipping as we now are n oir railroads, and Will Bell ships to foreigners as we uow sell locomotivos and