REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF NAVIGATION. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, Washington, November 10, 1909. SIR: I have the honor to submit herewith my annual report. By statute it is the province and duty of the Department of Commerce and Labor to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce, the shipping and fisheries industries, and the transportation facilities of the United States. The law requires the Commissioner of Navigation to report in detail the increase of vessels of the United States, and to "investigate the operations of the laws relative to navigation, and annually report to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor such particulars as may, in his judgment, admit of improvement or may require amendment. Much of this report is devoted to a consideration of methods employed by maritime nations which promote foreign commerce and shipping by means of subsidies, usually under the name of oceanmail contracts. In fact, however, many foreign subsidized steamship lines no longer furnish the quickest means of transporting the mails. The capitals of northern Europe can send letters to Asia and Australia more quickly by the trans-Siberian railroad or by the transcontinental railroads of North America, with proper transAtlantic and trans-Pacific steamship connections, than they can send them by the Suez route. The coming opening of the Panama Canal will still further change the situation. While such subsidies originally were for ocean-mail purposes, their character has changed considerably with changes in the world's transportation routes. Their purposes now are commercial, political, and military. They are adopted by other maritime powers as legitimate and effective instrumentalities for pushing trade, especially in South America and Asia, where international competition grows keener every year. They are accepted as necessary obligations by every other power which possesses over-sea territory and islands, such as our own country has acquired latest among nations. In nearly every considerable conflict beginning with the Crimean war (excepting wars in which Prussia has been involved) they have demonstrated their value as essential factors in military operations at sea and ashore. That value never was greater than in the wars of the last fifteen years. While subsidies serve these large public purposes, incidentally they promote shipping and shipbuilding, and in these results this Bureau is concerned. The fact that American shipping in foreign trade does not grow has long been familiar to all. Our disadvantages in that line of activity and our advantages are generally understood. Neither are greater or less than were the disadvantages and advantages which were met and used when, twenty-five years ago, we set out to become a first-class naval power. By fixing attention on all the large purposes to be served, that end has been satisfactorily attained, except in an important respect-the merchant marine as contributory in men, ships, and shipyards to the Navy. Competent authorities, including the Admiral of the Navy, urge complete attainment. STATISTICS FOR THE YEAR. On June 30, 1909, the merchant marine of the United States, including all kinds of documented shipping, comprised 25,688 vessels of 7,388,755 gross tons. On June 30, 1908, it comprised 25,425 vessels of 7,365,445 gross tons. The following table shows the geographical distribution, motive power, material of construction, and trade of vessels of the United States for the fiscal year 1909 in comparison with similar data for the year 1908, and also the construction for the two years. COMPARISON OF MERCHANT MARINE OF 1908 AND 1909. ANALYSIS OF THE YEAR'S CONSTRUCTION. During the past fiscal year 1,247 vessels of 238,090 gross tons were built and documented in the United States, compared with 1,457 vessels of 614,216 gross tons for the previous fiscal year. Of this year's total, 136,923 gross tons were built of steel. The construction for 1908 was the largest in our history, while the construction for the past fiscal year was the smallest since 1898. The sharp decline in shipbuilding had been anticipated and was due partly to local causes and partly to the general business depression throughout the world, in which the United States shared. Thus shipbuilding in the United Kingdom dropped from 1,580,000 tons in the calendar year 1907 to 914,000 tons in 1908. The salient features of the year's construction readily appear from the following table of vessels of 1,000 gross tons or upward built and documented during the year, these 31 vessels aggregating only about 50 per cent of the total construction, showing that our great shipyards on the seaboard were without commercial work last year and dependent on navy contracts. VESSELS OF 1,000 GROSS TONS AND OVER BUILT IN THE UNITED STATES AND DOCUMENTED DURING THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 1909. The following summary of the vessels just named and of vessels of over 1,000 tons built during the preceding four years shows the changes in the larger forms of construction for the five-year period, attention being especially invited to the fact that during this period no square-rigged vessels have been built, and to the increase in steel construction, except last year, on the Great Lakes: |