The figures above for British mail and admiralty subsidies for the year 1907 do not include the new admiralty subsidy of $729,000 a year which is now being paid to the Cunard Company under a 20-year contract by which the British Government advanced $13,000,000 to the company at 24 per cent interest, in fact giving to that company the two finest ships ever constructed in England, the "Lusitania" and the "Mauretania," if the company would operate them to carry the mails and hold them in reserve for military purposes, each steamer capable of carrying 10,000 soldiers armed and equipped.

Neither do these figures include the sum of approximately $1,250,000 which England has spent annually for some years upon picked sailors on her merchant vessels to train them for service on her battleships should ocasion arise and to retain them for the purpose.

Value of foreign carrying trade of the United States in American and foreign vessels, etc.—Total United States imports and Exports.

A nation like that of the United States, with eighty millions of people, with resources unexampled in the history of the world, with ideals as high as those of any nation, with the earnest desire to spread the principles of liberty and of popular government, cannot maintain a position of isolation with respect to the peoples of the world when fate shall have thrust some of those peoples under our control. -Hon. Wm. H. Taft, at Cleveland, Ohio.

Our Future is on the Sea.

[From the speech of the Hon. J. Sloat Fassett, of New York.]

You will remember there are two great American questions put to every proposition:

First. Is it right?

Second. Will it pay?

The great prizes of the future are to be won from the waters, not from the lands. Our political well-being and our social integrity and health are all wrapped up in developing a merchant navy large enough to carry our goods to all the open and opening markets of the world in times of peace, and strong enough, in cooperation with our Army and Navy, to protect our coasts, as well as our commerce, in times of war. This can be done, as matters are at present, only by putting up our subsidies, or putting down our wages and reducing our scale of living, but the scale of living will not go backward; that is too dear a price to pay. If war should come-which God forbid-and if our Navy and our Army should undertake to meet ideal conditions and strike the swiftest possible blow with the greatest possible force, at the greatest possible distance from home, we should find ourselves utterly unable to meet conditions. We could not embark a single Army division of 20,000 men fully armed and fully equipped and prepared for any point, either on the Atlantic or Pacific coast. We could not supply the auxiliary transports and hospital ships and other necessary ships for the Navy alone, to say nothing of supplying ships to carry and provide for troops. We should be reduced in spite of our glorious Navy, to the ridiculous and dangerous, if not the fatal, absurdity of operating our fleet within sight of shore and waiting to receive the attack of the enemy at the enemy's own pleasure and in the enemy's own good way. Our trade rivals subsidize and flourish. We are living on a high plane. We could not and would not reduce the comforts in the lives and homes of our American working people, either at sea or on land, so we must come squarely to the line and give aid, and give it quickly, and give it abundantly in the form of adequate subsidies for services rendered and to be rendered. We must give it not because it will be of advantage to individuals here and there, but in spite of that fact; not because it will increase the revenues of corporations engaged in deep-sea commerce, but in spite of that fact. We must give it in this way, because it is necessary for the well-being of all our citizens; because it enables us in times of peace to obtain security in times of war; we must do it to insure the best interests of our future; we must do it because it will pay to do it and because it is right to do it. We must subsidize because it is the only way; because we must be prepared to meet the call of our manifest destiny; because we cannot shirk the burden put upon us by circumstances, and we must do it quickly before our ships are all gone, and before our sailors have all disappeared. It is not a question of pride; it is not a question of pleasure; between failure and success, we must choose success; between humiliation and victory, we must choose victory. We must choose to meet our rivals as gloriously on the seas as we have ever met them on the land. To maintain our merchant victories by land we must arrange for merchant victories at sea.

From First Annual Report of Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Hon. George B. Cortelyou, 1903.

For years the condition of our shipping in foreign trade has been a matter of concern to public-spirited Americans. It is virtually the only form of commercial and industrial activity in which the country has not recently shown creditable growth. As an industry it holds exceptional relations to Government. From the nature of things, it has been exposed in an unusual degree to foreign competition. These and other considerations make it a fitting subject for our highest statesmanship. Strong appeals in its behalf by our Presidents from the time of General Grant and earnest efforts more recently in Congress have so far brought meager results. Congress has made it the duty of the Department of Commerce and Labor to foster, promote and develop our shipping interests. Commerce and labor, however, are not the only interests concerned in the improvement of our merchant shipping. Recent legislation and administration have aimed to render more effective the militia of the States as an important factor in the national defense. In our past wars the men and ships of the merchant marine were the reserves that put our Navy on a war footing, and under like circumstances they must perform the same service. Government aid to the merchant marine, in its naval features, should conform closely to our general naval policy. The position among nations now occupied by the United States warrants the maintenance of an ocean mail service equal to that of the United Kingdom or, of Germany, in order that like those countries we may possess the best possible facilities of communication in our dealings with distant quarters of the world. By the establishment of such service other nations have helped to build up their shipbuilding industries and to strengthen their position on the sea.

Ocean Mail Receipts and Revenues,

of

For some years past the postage collected on our foreign ocean mails has been very much greater than the expenses of our foreign ocean mail service. For the past fiscal year our revenues (postage) from foreign ocean mails were $6,579,043.48 and expenses $2,941,816.67, leaving an apparent surplus $3,637,226.81. From this surplus something (between $500,000 and $600,000) should be deducted for railroad transportation, so that the actual surplus was about $3,000,000. It is proposed to apply this surplus of ocean mail revenues to the improvement and extension of the ocean mail service in those directions where improvement and extension are most needed.

Receipts, cost and surplus of our foreign mails.

All materials of every kind required for the construction, equipment or repair of vessels built in this country for the foreign trade or for the long-voyage coastwise trade between our Atlantic and Pacific seaports are free of duty under sections 12 and 13 of the free list of the Dingley tariff, as follows:

Dingley Tariff Free List.

SEC. 12. That all materials of foreign production which may be necessary for the construction of vessels built in the United States for foreign account and ownership, or for the purpose of being employed in the foreign trade, including the trade between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States, and all such materials necessary for the building of their machinery, and all articles necessary for their outfit and equipment, may be imported in bond under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe; and upon proof that such materials have been used for such purposes no duties shall be paid thereon. But vessels receiving the benefit of this section shall not be allowed to engage in the coastwise trade of the United States more than two months in any one year, except upon the payment to the United States of the duties of which a rebate is herein allowed: Provided, That vessels built in the United States for foreign account and ownership shall not be allowed to engage in the coastwise trade of the United States.

SEC. 13. That all articles of foreign production needed for the repair of American vessels engaged in foreign trade, including the trade beween the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States, may be withdrawn from bonded warehouses free of duty under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.

Under this law not only steel plates and shapes, but articles of equipment so elaborate and costly as ships' compasses, have been imported free of duty for the use of vessels built in this country for the foreign trade and for the coastwise trade between the Atlantic and Pacific.

Ocean Freights and Fares.

The total amount expended in ocean freights and fares in trade between the United States and foreign countries, both going and coming, is not a matter of official record. From careful computations made by American and foreign authorities it is estimated, however, that in 1906 the fares paid by passengers to and fro between the United States and foreign countries amounted to $65,000.000; the cost of transporting the mails, both going and coming, to about $5,000,000, and freights on cargoes to $165,000,000, making a grand total of $225,000,000.

Number and net and gross tonnage of steam and sailing vessels of over 100 tons, of the several countries of the world, as recorded in Lloyd's Register for 1907-8.

The problems that seemed to hang over us at the close of the war with Spain have gone far toward solution. We of America have discovered that we, too, possess the supreme governing capacity, capacity not merely to govern ourselves at home, but that great power that in all ages has made the difference between the great and the small nations, the capacity to govern men wherever they were found.-Elihu Root at Union League, New York, Feb. 3, 1904.

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM

OF 1908.

Once more the Republican Party, in National Convention assembled, submits its cause to the people. This great historic organization, that destroyed slavery, preserved the Union, restored credit, expanded the national domain, established a sound financial system, developed the industries and resources of the country, and gave to the nation her seat of honor in the councils of the world, now meets the new problems of government with the same courage and capacity with which it solved the old.

Republicanism Under Roosevelt.

In this greatest era of American advancement the Republican Party has reached its highest service under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt. His administration is an epoch in American history. In no other period since national sovereignty was won nder Washington, or preserved under Lincoln, has there been such mighty progress in those ideals of government which make for justice, equality, and fair dealing among men. The highest aspirations of the American people have found a voice. Their most exalted servant represents the best aims and worthiest prposes of all his countrymen. American manhood has been liited to a nobler sense of duty and obligation. Conscience and courage in public station and higher standards of right and wrong in private life have become cardinal principles of political faith; capital and labor have been brought into closer relations of confidence and interdependence; and the abuse of wealth, the tyranny of power, and all the evils of privilege and favoritism have bee put to scorn by the simple, manly virtues of justice and fair play.

The great accomplishments of President Roosevelt have been, frst and foremost, a brave and impartial enforcement of the law; the prosection of illegal trusts and monopolies; the exposure and punishment of evil-doers in the public service; the more effective regulation of the rates and service of the great transportation lines; the complete overthrow of preferences, rebates, and discriminations; the arbitration of labor disputes; the amelioration of the condition of wage-workers everywhere; the conservation of the natural resources of the country; the forward step in the improvement of the inland waterways, and always the earnest support and defense of every wholesome safeguard which has made more secure the guaranties of life, liberty, and property.

These are the achievements that will make Theodore Rooserelt his place in history, but more than all else the great things he has done will be an inspiration to those who have yet greater things to do. We declare our unfaltering adherence to the policies thus inaugurated, and pledge their continuance under a Republican administration of the Government.

Equality of Opportunity.

Under the guidance of Republican principles the American people have become the richest nation in the world. Our wealth today exceeds that of England and all her colonies, and that of France and Germany combined. When the Republican Party was born the total wealth of the country was $16,000,000,000. It has leaped to $110.000.000.000 in a generation, while Great Britain has gathered but $50,000,000,000 in five hundred years. The United States now owns one-fourth of the world's wealth and makes one-third of all modern manufactured products. In the great necessities of civilization, such as coal, the motive power of all activity; iron, the chief basis of all industry; cotton, the staple foundation of all fabrics; wheat, corn, and all the agricultural products that feed mankind, America's supremacy is un