to do. It is what must be done if we would have a revival of our shipping and the desired development of our foreign trade. We can not repeal the protective tariff; no political party dreams of repealing it; we do not wish to lower the standard of American living or American wages. We should give back to the shipowner what we take away from him for the purpose of maintaining that standard; and unless we do give it back we shall continue to go without ships. How can the expenditure of public money for the improvement of rivers and harbors to promote trade be justified upon any grounds which do not. also sustain this proposal? Would anyone reverse the policy that granted aid to the Pacific railroads, the pioneers of our enormous internal commerce, the agencies that built up the great traffic which has enabled half a dozen other roads to be built in later years without assistance? Such subventions would not be gifts. They would be at once compensation for injuries inflicted upon American shipping by American laws and the consideration for benefits received by the whole American people-not the shippers or the shipbuilders or the sailors alone, but by every manufacturer, every miner, every farmer, every merchant whose prosperity depends upon a market for its products.

The provision for such just compensation should be carefully shaped and directed so that it will go to individual advantage only so far as the individual is enabled by it to earn a reasonable profit by building up the business of the country.

A bill is now pending in Congress which contains such provisions; it has passed the Senate and is now before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries; it is known as Senate bill No. 529, Fifty-ninth Congress, first session. It provides specifically that the Postmaster-General may pay to American steamships, of specified rates of speed, carrying mails upon a regular service, compensation not to exceed the following amounts: For a line from an Atlantic port to Brazil, monthly, $150,000 a year; for a line from an Atlantic port to Uruguay and Argentina, monthly, $187,500 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to Brazil, monthly, $137,500 a year; for a line from each of two Gulf ports and from New Orleans to Central America and the Isthmus of Panama, weekly, $75,000 a year; for a line from a Gulf port to Mexico, weekly, $50,000 a year; for a line from a Pacific coast port to Mexico, Central America, and the Isthmus of Panama, fortnightly, $120,000 a year. For these six regular lines a total of $720,000. The payments provided are no more than enough to give the American ships a fair living chance in the competition.

There are other wise and reasonable provisions in the bill relating to trade with the Orient, to tramp steamers, and to a naval reserve; but I am now concerned with the provisions for trade to the south. The hope of such a trade lies chiefly in the passage of that bill.

Postmaster-General Cortelyou, in his report for 1905, said:

Congress has authorized the Postmaster-General, by the act of 1891, to contract with the owners of American steamships for ocean mail service and has realized the impracticability of commanding suitable steamships in the interest of the postal service alone by requiring that such steamers shall be of a size, class, and equipment which will promote commerce and become available as auxiliary cruisers of the Navy in case of need. The compensation allowed to such steamers is found to be wholly inadequate to secure the proposals contemplated; hence advertisements from time to time have failed to develop any bids for much-needed service. This is especially true in regard to several of the

countries of South America with which we have cordial relations and which, for manifest reasons, should have direct mail connections with us. I refer to Brazil and countries south of it. Complaints of serious delay to mails for these countries have become frequent and emphatic, leading to the suggestion on the part of certain officials of the Government that for the present and until more satisfactory direct communication can be established important mails should be dispatched to South America by way of European ports and on European steamers, which would not only involve the United States in the payment of double transit rates to a foreign country for the dispatch of its mails to countries of our own hemisphere, but might seriously embarrass the Government in the exchange of important official and diplomatic correspondence.

The fact that the Government claims exclusive control of the transmission of letter mail throughout its own territory would seem to imply that it should secure and maintain the exclusive jurisdiction, when necessary, of its mails on the high seas. The unprecedented expansion of trade and foreign commerce justifies prompt consideration of an adequate foreign mail service.

It is difficult to believe, but it is true, that out of this faulty ocean mail service the Government of the United States is making a large profit. The actual cost to the Government last year of the ocean mail service to foreign countries other than Canada and Mexico was $2,965,624.21, while the proceeds realized by the Government from postage between the United States and foreign countries other than Canada and Mexico was $6,008,807.53, leaving the profit to the United States of $3,043,183.32; that is to say, under existing law the Government of the United States, having assumed the monopoly of carrying the mails for the people of the country, is making a profit of $3,000,000 per annum by rendering cheap and inefficient service. Every dollar of that three millions is made at the expense of the commerce of the United States. What can be plainer than that the Government ought to expend at least the profits that it gets from the ocean mail service in making the ocean mail service efficient. One quarter of those profits would establish all these lines which I have described between the United States and South and Central America and give us, besides a good mail service, enlarged markets for the producers and merchants of the United States who pay the postage from which the profits come."

In his last message to Congress President Roosevelt said:

To the spread of our trade in peace and the defense of our flag in war a great and prosperous merchant marine is indispensable. We should have ships of our own and seamen of our own to convey our goods to neutral markets, and in case of need, to reenforce our battle line. It can not but be a source of regret and uneasiness to us that the lines of communication with our sister Republics of South America should be chiefly under foreign control. It is not a good thing that American merchants and manufacturers should have to send their goods and letters to South America via Europe if they wish security and dispatch. Even on the Pacific, where our ships have held their own better than on the Atlantic, our merchant flag is now threatened through the liberal aid bestowed by other governments on their own steam lines. I ask your earnest consideration of the report with which the Merchant Marine Commission has followed its long and careful inquiry.

The bill now pending in the House is a bill framed upon the report of that Merchant Marine Commission. The question whether it shall become a law depends upon your Representatives in the House. You have the judgment of the Postmaster-General, you have the judg

a There would be some modification of these figures if the cost of getting the mails to and from the exchange offices were charged against the account; but this is not separable from the general domestic cost and would not materially change the result.

ment of the Senate, you have the judgment of the President; if you agree with these judgments and wish the bill which embodies them to become a law, say so to your Representatives. Say it to them individually and directly, for it is your right to advise them and it will be their pleasure to hear from you what legislation the interests of their constituents demand.

The great body of Congressmen are always sincerely desirous to meet the just wishes of their constituents and to do what is for the public interest; but in this great country they are continually assailed by innumerable expressions of private opinion and by innumerable demands for the expenditure of public money; they come to discriminate very clearly between private opinion and public opinion, and between real public opinion and the manufactured appearance of public opinion; they know that when there is a real demand for any kind of legislation it will make itself known to them through a multitude of individual voices. Resolutions of commercial bodies frequently indicate nothing except that the proposer of the resolution has a positive opinion and that no one else has interest enough in the subject to oppose it. Such resolutions by themselves, therefore, have comparatively little effect; they are effective only when the support of individual expressions shows that they really represent a genuine and general opinion.

It is for you and the business men all over the country whom you represent to show to the Representatives in Congress that the producing and commercial interests of the country really desire a practical measure to enlarge the markets and increase the foreign trade of the United States, by enabling American shipping to overcome the disadvantages imposed upon it by foreign governments for the benefit of their trade, and by our Government for the benefit of our home industry.

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC CONFERENCES.

No. 1.]

ALGECIRAS CONFERENCE.

(Continued from Foreign Relations, 1905, pp. 668-684.)

Delegates White and Gummeré to the Secretary of State.

ALGECIRAS, January 25, 1906. SIR: We have the honor to present to you the following report concerning the organization and deliberations of the Moroccan conference up to the present time, as well as confirmation of telegrams dispatched to you, copies of which are inclosed herewith." The conference met for organization on the afternoon of January 16 at the Hotel de Ville, Algeciras, which has been handsomely arranged for the sittings.

Before entering the hall of conference the delegates were called to order by M. de Radowitz, first German delegate, who nominated the Duke of Almodovar, Spanish minister of foreign affairs, as president of the conference, who was thereupon unanimously elected. After this, with some ceremony, the delegates were ushered into the large hall, being seated alphabetically according to countries. The president opened the proceedings with a brief address, in which he suggested that the basis of the proceedings of the conference should be the restoration of order, organization of police, suppression of contraband, creation of revenues for public expenses, and the improvement of ports, dwelling especially upon the point that all reforms should be based upon the triple principles of the sovereignty of the Sultan, the integrity of Morocco, and the "open door."

Mr. Revoil, French delegate, thereupon arose and said that he associated himself with the sentiments expressed by the president, and proposed that the conference should give its adhesion thereto. He was followed by Mr. de Radowitz, first German delegate, who said that he agreed entirely with the declarations of the president and Mr. Revoli, and hoped that the labors of the conference might have good results. Shortly afterwards the conference adjourned.

As a result of consultation among the delegates it was agreed that informal sessions of the conference should be held from time to time for an exchange of views on subjects to be presented at the regular sittings, and the first such meeting was called on the afternoon of the 16th instant, when the question of the suppression of contraband of arms and ammunition, the first subject to be presented to the conference, was discussed; and it was agreed that it be referred to a committee of experts, consisting of Count Tattenbach, second German delegate; M. Malmusi, second Italian delegate: M. Perez Caballero,

a Not printed.

Spanish delegate; and M. Regnault, French expert, who should report a programme of regulations to be presented for discussion and adopted at a formal sitting to be held at a later date.

This committee of experts accordingly drew up and presented a series of articles, 16 in number, which were submitted to the conference at a sitting held on the morning of January 22, and after considerable discussion 5 of them were adopted. The remainder were again referred to the committee of experts, and after further change and enlargement, to the number of 18 in all, were discussed by the conference at a sitting on the morning of January 24 and . unanimously adopted, with the sole exception of article 14, which the Moroccan delegates desired to refer to the Sultan for his decision.

The next project to be considered is that of taxes, and an informal meeting to discuss the same is fixed for the afternoon of the 25th instant.

Copies of the lists of delegates plenipotentiary and of the official reports of the meetings so far printed are herewith inclosed, together with the articles embodying the regulations for the suppression of contraband in arms and ammunition, as adopted." We have the honor, etc.,

HENRY WHITE.
S. R. GUMMERÉ.

Delegate White to the Secretary of State.

No. 2.] ALGECIRAS, January 30, 1906. SIR: With reference to your instructions of November last, regarding the alleged Jewish disabilities in Morocco and directing me to impress their abolition upon this conference, I have the honor to inform you that until very lately I intended availing myself of the earliest possible opportunity to address the conference on this subject and to lay before it the list of restrictions set forth in Mr. Jacob H. Schiff's letter to you of November 21 last."

As I mentioned to you, however, in my cablegram No. 4, of the 23d instant, the British and French ambassador, Sir Arthur Nicolson and Monsieur Revoil, having evidently conferred previously, approached me together to say that they hoped my instructions were not mandatory in this respect, as they deemed it most undesirable to introduce any subject not strictly within the programme, and they did not consider the Jewish disabilities could be raised as a matter pertaining to the police question. Both nevertheless expressed great anxiety that any wish of the President's should be carried out and suggested plans which I outlined to you, along with my answer to them, in my dispatch of that date.

Another element has, however, been introduced into this question. Already in my telegram of the 23d instant I stated that I was convinced that many of the restrictions mentioned in the memorandum furnished by Mr. Schiff had fallen into disuse, and that most of the remainder appeared to be de jure rather than de facto. Since then my doubts on the subject have been further confirmed.

a Not printed.

Printed in Foreign Relations 1905, p. 681.