The whole nation is interested in securing cheap transportation from
the agricultural States of the West to the Atlantic Seaboard. To the
citizens of those States it secures a greater return for their labor; to
the inhabitants of the seaboard it affords cheaper food; to the nation,
an increase in the annual surplus of wealth. It is hoped that the
Government of Great Britain will see the justice of abandoning the
narrow and inconsistent claim to which her Canadian Provinces have urged
her adherence.
Our depressed commerce is a subject to which I called your special
attention at the last session, and suggested that we will in the future
have to look more to the countries south of us, and to China and Japan,
for its revival. Our representatives to all these Governments have
exerted their influence to encourage trade between the United States and
the countries to which they are accredited. But the fact exists that the
carrying is done almost entirely in foreign bottoms, and while this
state of affairs exists we can not control our due share of the commerce
of the world; that between the Pacific States and China and Japan is
about all the carrying trade now conducted in American vessels. I would
recommend a liberal policy toward that line of American steamers--one
that will insure its success, and even increased usefulness.
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