participation in our domestic trade. The adoption of the amendment as provided in S. 5106 will restore the confidence of our shipowners in the time-honored policy of our Government with respect to the coastwise trade and result in increasing the construction of vessels for that trade in American shipyards. The present value of our domestic shipping is probably close to $350,000,000, the owners of which depend upon our Government not to subject it to the impairment which threatens through the increasing admittance of foreign-built ships to competition. Seven hundred vessels have been admitted to American registry through the general act and through special acts of Congress. The Commissioner of Navigation in his report for 1904 states: From December 23, 1852, to June 30, 1904, 236,405 gross tons have been admitted to American registry under the general act, while 189,163 gross tons have been admitted by special acts of Congress, including 50,358 tons Hawaiian and 1,260 tons Porto Rican through annexation. Thus a shipping equal to one-half the tonnage under the American flag now engaged in the foreign trade has been admitted to American register. In a report adopted by the Committee on Commerce in 1898, relat ing to this same subject, the committee said: In recent years the purpose and spirit of section 4136 has been violated in many instances. In order to get an American enrollment and admission to the coastwise trade foreign vessels are often wrecked in our waters for that purpose alone. In the same report the matter was further discussed in part as follows: These wrecked vessels uniformly apply to be admitted to American registry. Their owners never take them back to the country where they were built to enter the coastwise trade. These vessels are for the most part not well built. They are not such ships, after being repaired, that the Government could use as auxiliary cruisers, while the American built and owned ships in our coastwise trade can be converted easily into cruisers. Our coastwise trade is profitable and therefore attractive. Section 4136 furnished the only opportunity for foreign-built vessels being admitted to this trade. But the great profit that comes to a foreign-built wrecked and repaired vessel from American registry and admittance to the coastwise trade is the increased value above the cost of the vessel. This generally amounts to $100,000; in other words, American registry increases the value of the vessel $100,000. This is the amount that the privilege or franchise of taking part in our coastwise trade confers on a wrecked vessel, and for which the Government gets no consideration, and our shipowners are obliged to meet in competition. It was shown before the Committee on Commerce during the hearing on this amendment that Three foreign-built wrecks sold for Making the total cost.. $26, 910.00 123, 709. 75 150, 619.75 After being admitted to American registry and to our coastwise trade the owners of these three wrecked vessels valued and insured the same at $525,000, making the increase in value, owing to American registry alone, $374,380.75. The original act, and the act as now in force, provides for the admission to American registry of foreign-built vessels that have been wrecked in the United States, that have been purchased and repaired by a citizen of the United States at an expense equal to three-fourths of their cost when so repaired. But under opinions rendered by the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of the United States it has become the practice to admit foreign-built vessels to American register that have been wrecked in the United States, that have then been repaired here for their foreign owners, that have thereupon continued under their foreign register, and that have for longer or shorter periods remained under foreign flags, but that have, subsequently, perhaps years afterwards, been purchased by an American citizen. The statute would seem to contemplate that the foreign-built vessel would be sold, as a wreck, to an American citizen. The probability of her being admitted to American registry, upon the completion of the repairs required, would doubtless enhance her value, even in her wrecked condition. But when she is repaired for her foreign owner and subsequently sold at private sale abroad, her value under a foreign flag becomes the basis of purchase and sale. Again, when a vessel that has been wrecked has not been sold until long after the repairs have been made, it is an utter impossibility for the Commissioner of Navigation to know that "the repairs put upon such vessel are equal to three-fourths of the cost of the vessel when so repaired," and yet precisely this is required by the statute under which these vessels are admitted to our registry. It is the purchase price of the vessel at the time the register is demanded, perhaps years after she was wrecked and repaired in the United States, and at a time when her natural depreciation brings her value far lower than it was at the time she was wrecked and repaired, that the Commissioner of Navigation in such cases takes as the basis upon which to grant the register. It only requires that the vessel shall keep afloat long enough and thus naturally depreciate in value enough for the repairs that were put upon her at the time she was wrecked in the United States to equal three-fourths of the cost of the vessel, not when so repaired, as required by the statute, but at the time of her final purchase by an American citizen, perhaps years after she was repaired. The result is that the older a foreign-built vessel becomes, so long as she was once wrecked and repaired in the United States, the sooner she becomes eligible to American register. The greater her age and infirmities, under this method of construing the statute, the better opportunity for securing for her an American register. In his report for 1904 in discussing this subject the Commissioner of Navigation, referring to the opinions of the law officers of the Government, says: These opinions have been followed uniformly for years by the Department and have accordingly the validity of law, whatever view may be taken of their propriety in the first instance. These matters are mentioned because a reading of the precise words of the statute conveys at times a different meaning to the public from that given by the Attorney-General, adopted by the Department, and by uniform practice become law for the guidance of the Bureau. If Congress shall see fit to change the scope of section 4136 of the Revised Statutes, the Attorney-General's interpretations of the exact language of the section may be consulted. One has but to read the opinions in question to realize how ambiguous the meaning of section 4136 is. It is also manifest, from a reading of these opinions and from a clear understanding of the conditions under which foreign-built wrecked vessels are admitted to American registry, that in every particular the interpretation is favorable to the wrecked foreign-built vessel and injurious to the Americanbuilt vessel with which she is at once permitted to enter into competition in our coastwise trade. So far, indeed, in the opinion of the Committee on Commerce, have the interpretations of section 4136 been stretched and distorted that the need is imperative for its amend ment in a manner to restore its future application more nearly to the original and, as we believe, the present intent of Congress. The appreciation in value of foreign-built wrecked vessels when given the right of access to our coastwise trade has, as has already been said, in many cases doubled, and this notwithstanding a corresponding proportionate depreciation in the value of the American-built vessels with which they compete. The result is that now when an American vessel owner who is engaged in the coastwise trade needs another vessel for his business, instead of applying to an American shipbuilder, he bides his time when he can purchase a foreign-built wreck and repair her in an American shipyard. In fact, the statement has been made that such foreign-built vessels as would suit in certain trades where another vessel is needed by an American citizen have at times been conveniently "wrecked" in the waters of the United States, taken to an American shipyard, after having been purchased by an American citizen, and the repairs put upon her so swollen in amount as to make her eligible under the statutory requirement as to expense for repairs to receive American register. The Commissioner of Navigation, in his report for 1904 calls our attention to this fact: In XV Opin. Attys. Gen., 402, the word "repairs" is construed to mean "new machinery, new appliances for her navigation, and other improvements introduced, whereby she became in many respects different from what she was originally." The present tendencies and practices, in the admission of foreignbuilt wrecked vessels to American registry, no less than the suggestion of the possibility of them, have a demoralizing effect upon American vessel owners and builders, besides placing under the register of the United States old worn-out vessels that it was never the intention of Congress should be admitted to American registry. Again, under the construction of the statute in question, by the law officers of the Government, the cost of salving the wrecked foreignbuilt vessel, which is quite separate and distinct from the repairing of her after being salved, is included in the cost of her repairs. There are times when the cost of salving is slight, but in most cases the salving expense is large, sometimes far in excess of the purchase price of the wreck. In many cases it is only through joining the expense of salving to the expense of repairing these wrecked foreign-built vessels that they become entitled to secure American register. It is also to correct this abuse that the amendment to section 4136, Revised Statutes, as provided in S. 5106, is recommended. A recent case will clearly illustrate the abuses that have grown up under the more than half century operation, interpretation, and enforcement of this old statute. A foreign-built steamer with a cargo of sugar grounded on Nantucket early in 1903. About the time the wrecking tugs were ready to attempt to haul her off she backed off under her own steam and without aid from the tugs. Under their convoy she proceeded to her port of destination and there landed her cargo of sugar uninjured. This vessel was deemed a wreck, apparently, only for the purpose of securing an American register. It so happens that metal vessels, in the ordinary course of their operation in different ports where the rise and fall of the tide is considerable, sustain injuries to their bottom more or less serious. The vessel in question was about 14 years old when she grounded on Nantucket. Probably her bottom had been dented and injured many times for the reasons last recited. When she was drydocked, subsequent to her arrival in port with her cargo of sugar, these defects in her bottom were discovered. An opportunity was thus presented to her foreign owners to place upon her foreign underwriters the cost of putting her bottom in good repair again. So, she was repaired in an American shipyard at an expense. amounting to $39,000 or $40,000. By various artifices this cost was raised to $44,000 or $45,000, inclusive of the salvage which in this case amounted to only $2,000. At the time she grounded and preceding the placing of repairs upon her a number of American citizens were willing to pay $30,000 for her in her injured condition. If purchased at that time for such an amount by an American citizen, he would have been compelled to place repairs upon her amounting to $90,000 in order to secure American register for her. Her foreign owners declined to sell her. So she was repaired at the expense of her foreign underwriters for her foreign owners, and continued under her foreign register upon the completion of her repairs. A year or more later, or during the summer of last year and at a time when the world's shipping was in a state of exceptional depression and vessels' value had greatly depreciated as a result, an American citizen, who had previously had no connection with the vessel under discussion, least of all at the time she was wrecked and repaired in the United States, took a trip abroad and while there purchased her from her foreign owners for a sum approximating $65,000, and bringing her to the United States, placed additional repairs or alterations upon her amounting to $7,000 or $8,000 and then demanded, under section 4136 and the opinions rendered by the law officers of the Government as applicable to such cases, an American register. This attempt to secure American register was opposed with great vigor by a large number of American citizens, including vessel owners and vessel builders, labor organizations, and others. Despite all of these protests, despite the statements made to the Commissioner of Navigation that there were those who estimated that the value of the vessel under American register would exceed $120,000, despite the fact that a firm offer of $120,000 was made for the vessel, if given American register, by a responsible American vessel owner, the Commissioner of Navigation felt constrained, under the interpretation of this ambiguous old section of the law as made by the law officers of the Government, to disregard all of the protests and grant the register. This he did. The very first thing that was done as soon as American register was granted to the vessel in question was to underbid an American vessel then engaged in carrying coal along our coast, and the foreignbuilt vessel obtained the carrying, the American vessel being laid up for want of employment. Owners of vessels engaged in our coastwise trade fear that the growth of the abuses under which foreign-built wrecks are admitted to American register will soon place the former in serious jeopardy from the ruinous competion of these cheaply built low-priced foreignbuilt wrecks. With as many as 50 foreign-built steamships now in our coastwise trade, and the threat of many more soon being admitted under the interpretations of the law as just recited, ruin stares the owners and builders of American vessels in the face. At the present moment applications for American register are now pending before the Commissioner of Navigation, which registers are likely to be granted under the remarkable interpretations of the meaning and scope of section 4136 that, as the Commissioner of Navigation states in his last report, "by uniform practice become law for the guidance of the Bureau." Any number of cases could be cited where the granting of an American enrollment to a foreign-built vessel has immediately doubled her value to her American owner, because of her admittance to the coastwise trade. Thus, the stroke of the pen of the Commissioner of Navigation may enhance the value of the private property of an American citizen by many thousands of dollars without benefit or recompense to the Government, at serious and permanent injury to competing American vessels and the denial of just so much employment to American shipyards, a condition, we feel sure, that was never contemplated by Congress and which it is the purpose of S. 5106 to remedy. Not one of the American citizens who succeed in securing such an appreciation in the value of their property is desirous of a similar privilege being extended to his competitors, because if the admission were open to all foreign-built vessels no value would attach to the enrollment. It is the exclusiveness, together with the much higher cost of American-built vessels with which she at once enters into competion, that gives value to the enrollment granted. Of this there can be no doubt: If a foreign-built vessel is wrecked. in the United States and repaired in an American shipyard, the repairs are only made because the wrecked vessel is worth repairing. The repairing is not done in order to give employment to American shipyards and American workmen. Such employment is merely an incident. It should not be conceded, therefore, that American shipbuilders and American labor are benefited by the granting of American enrollments to foreign-built wrecked vessels any more than they are in the cases where such repairs are made to foreign-built vessels that are wrecked and repaired for their foreign owners. If the wrecked vessel is worthy of being repaired, she will be repaired. In the case of serious injury to a vessel, of a character to require her being repaired in an American shipyard, she will be so repaired, just the same whether she receives an American register or enrollment or not. If the injuries are slight, and are exaggerated in order to give opportunities for subjecting foreign underwriters to unjust treatment, or in order to enable an American purchaser to juggle through the admission of a foreign-built vessel to American enrollment in a manner never contemplated by the original framers of the act or by Congress, the earliest possible stop should be put to such practices. It is inconceivable that, if an American register or enrollment did not appreciate the value of a vessel receiving it, such register or enrollment would be asked for. And such appreciation in value is wholly at the expense of American vessel owners and, at the present time, when our mercantile shipbuilding is confined almost wholly to the demand created by our domestic trade, of American shipbuilders, because of the rapidly growing disposition of American vessel owners to increase their fleets with wrecked foreign-built rather than with newly built American vessels. On May 23, 1898, the Senate Committee on Commerce approved of a similar bill to S. 5106, which bill (S. 3213, 55th Cong.) was accompanied by a report (No. 1129, 55th Cong., 2d sess.) under the caption of |