Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/291

Rh foreign trade carried in American and in foreign vessels” show, nearly 82 per cent. of that trade was carried on in American vessels. Between 1847 and 1861, that percentage fell to 65. Then the civil war came, at the close of which American bottoms carried only 28 per cent. of that trade; and now we carry less that 12 per cent. During the period when this maritime trade rose to its highest development, we had no naval force to be in any degree compared with those of the great European Powers. Nor did we need any for the protection of our maritime commerce, for no foreign Power molested that commerce. In fact, since the war of 1812, it has not been molested by anybody so as to require armed protection except during the civil war by Confederate cruisers. The harassment ceased again when the civil war ended, but our merchant shipping on the high seas continued to decline.

That decline was evidently not owing to the superiority of other nations in naval armament. It was coincident with the development of ocean transportation by iron steamships instead of wooden sailing ships. The wooden sailing ships we had in plenty, but of iron steamships we have only few. It appears, therefore, that whatever we may need a large war fleet for, it is certainly not for the development of our maritime commerce. To raise that commerce to its old superiority again, we want not more warships, but more merchant vessels. To obtain these we need a policy enabling American capital and enterprise to compete in that business with foreign nations. And to make such a policy fruitful, we need above all things peace. And we shall have that peace so long as we abstain from driving some foreign Power against its own inclination into a war with the United States.

Can there be any motive other than the absurd ones mentioned, to induce us to provoke such a war? I have heard it said that a war might be desirable to enliven