The CHAIRMAN. How much have you stated has been expended by the Federal Government in the improvement of our waterways and the construction and operation of canals other than the Panama Canal?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I had that statement in my reports a couple of years ago. I do not remember what it is just now.

The CHAIRMAN. It is a little short of $800,000,000, I think.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I could not say. I could tell in a moment $527,000,000.

The CHAIRMAN. No.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Those figures are taken from the digest of appropriations of that time.

The CHAIRMAN. What year was that?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. June 30, 1911, the report is, so I think the figures covered to June, 1910.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it not a fact, Judge Alexander, that your committee reported the total amount expended exceeded $740,000,000, or thereabouts?

Mr. ALEXANDER. I think it was about that.

The CHAIRMAN. That does not embrace the $150,000,000 or $200,000,000 expended by the State of New York on its canals, making a total of about $1,000,000,000. I simply asked that as a preliminary to this other question, which I think you have answered before, but I want to be clear about it. It has never been the policy of the Government heretofore to impose any tax or toll on American vessels using the waterways or canals of the United States, is that not correct?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Some time ago I said they imposed a tonnage tax during the Civil War.

The CHAIRMAN. With the exception of that charge?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is the only one I can recall.

The CHAIRMAN. They are not imposing it now on American vessels using the various canals and waterways of the country?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Not to my knowledge. In fact, there is a statute against it.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; passed in 1884?

Senator SIMMONS. Is it not a fact that the vessels of all the world can use these waterways that we have spent this money in improving upon equal terms with the vessels of the United States?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Absolutely a fact.

Senator SIMMONS. There is no discrimination against the vessels upon our domestic waters?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That policy is 100 years old.

The CHAIRMAN. What policy are you speaking of?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Of nondiscrimination.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you alluding to the reciprocal rights between the various nations in the various ports and harbors? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Which means that under our treaty, for instance, of 1815 with Great Britain, that we accord to the 4,000 or 5,000 ships flying the British flag all the privileges and rights of our American harbors and ports and in return for all of that Great Britain will extend the same privilege to our five ships flying the American flag on the Atlantic. That is the reciprocity?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is the general policy.
Senator THOMAS. The general policy?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The general maritime policy of the world and

has been.

Senator SIMMONS. If you should regard this canal as a domestic canal and put it upon parity with these rivers and harbors we have improved at the cost of millions of dollars, and you should let American ships through free and charge European shops a toll of $1.25 a ton, would we not be reversing with reference to the canal the policy we have always pursued with reference to our domestic waterways? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes; it would be absolutely different.

Senator WALSH. You do not desire us to understand, do you, that the Government has pursued exactly the same policy with reference to the coastwise shipping as it has with reference to the over-seas trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. By coastwise shipping

Senator WALSH. It has always been favored, has it not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. It has been exclusively our own.
Senator WALSH. It has had a monopoly?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. It has been an American monopoly, if you choose to put it that way.

Senator WALSH. Furthermore, there has been a fall in the matter of tonnage since the beginning of the Government, has there not? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. You mean tonnage charges?

Senator WALSH. Tonnage charges?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, sir.

Senator WALSH. There was a discrimination from the very outset in favor of it, was there not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes; if you can say that in confining it to Americans is a discrimination, it is an absolute separation. They are two different things.

Senator WALSH. The tonnage of foreign vessels was originally 50 cents and on American vessels 6 cents, was it not, under the act of 1789 ?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes.

Senator WALSH. So that in that respect the policy had not been to treat foreign ships exactly the same as our own with reference to the entry to American ports?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The policy of reciprocity-the reciprocal maritime policy was not simultaneous with the establishment of the Government. It began about 1815.

Senator SIMMONS. At present and during 100 years, excepting the period during the Civil War, foreign ships could not use our domestic waterways for anything except foreign-trade commerce. It will not be able to use our canal, or rather the Panama Canal, for any other trade except foreign trade, is that not true?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is true, as I understand it.

Senator PAGE. We are not permitted to use the British Columbia Canal from Victoria to Vancouver, 30 miles, except we pay for a single passenger in case of emergency a fine of $200. Is not that the price they impose?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. They impose fines for carrying passengers coastwise rather larger than ours. The principle is the same. I think their fine is $500, and ours $200 is my recollection.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chamberlain, are British coastwise vessels accorded any preferential rights in British harbors as compared with other ships-American ships or French or German ships?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I never heard of an American ship in coastwise trade with Great Britain. It is open to them; it is open to vessels of all nations.

The CHAIRMAN. What I mean and what I would like to have your answer on is this: Are higher harbor rates charged an American or French vessel in the ports of Great Britain than will be charged to a British vessel, whether engaged in the British coastwise or in the foreign trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The British harbor dues in some of the same ports are on a variable basis. They charge-for example, in Bristol and most of the other ports they have a higher rate for a vessel on a long voyage than they do for a vessel on a short voyage. The CHAIRMAN. Is that the only difference there is?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. But that, you see, is not inherently a discrimination based on the flag for this reason, that Great Britain is exceptional in this respect. The coasting trade of the United Kingdom is opened unreservedly without any conditions to vessels of all nations. That is the only nation of the world of which that is true. The CHAIRMAN. When was that policy inaugurated?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Some time in the fifties.

The CHAIRMAN. My impression is that it was in 1856.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I think very likely about that time. In that particular, you see, it is not a difference based on the flag, but on the length of the journey, upon the waters that the ship traverses.

Senator REED. This report from which a portion has been read— the report of 1911-is that before the committee? Is that in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. What is it?

Senator REED. The report of the Commissioner of Navigation. Is that part of it in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. Only those parts that have been embraced within the questions.

Senator CHILTON. I should like for the witness to read into the record the clause that I have marked thereon, page 8.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (reading):

Our traditional method of raising revenue handicaps our shipping as compared with foreign shipping. Conditions are necessarily such that the incidence of a high protective tariff rests more on American shipbuilding and American navigation than on other industries. The effect of the tariff in this respect has been exaggerated at times, but the statement is true to the extent that no American tariff has ever been framed from which American navigation, from its very nature, could derive any positive benefit, while every tariff, to a greater or less extent, indirectly has put some burdens on the industry.

It is not questioned that the traffic of the Panama Canal should supply revenue for its maintenance and possibly in time for the partial amortization of the expense incurred in construction. Toward this revenue we must ourselves contribute in some way, for even if our treaty obligations will permit us to impose upon foreign nations the entire burden of paying for the canal, not for an instant would there be the disposition to adopt so ungracious a policy or, in fact, could it be commercially feasible.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Chamberlain, I have seen it estimated for the year 1915 that the coastwise trade likely to pass through the

canal would amount to something like a million tons. I should like to ask you in that connection what is the tonnage capacity of our boats engaged in commerce upon the Great Lakes and what amount of tonnage do they annually carry?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. The total number of vessels on the Great Lakes is 3,447.

Senator SIMMONS. American, you mean?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I am talking of American boats exclusively. The total tonnage is 2,939,798. That is the tonnage of the ships. In speaking of the canal figures that you have in mind, counting the repeated voyages of the same ship going to and fro, one ship, that is, 100,000 tons may equalize if they make 10 voyages.

Senator SIMMONS. Do not your books show the amount of tonnage carried by those ships in carrying merchandise?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. This does not, but the returns of the Engineer Corps will show the traffic that goes through the Suez Canal. Senator SIMMONS. That is somewhere around 40,000,000?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. I should think it was a very large figure. Senator SIMMONS. American capital has supplied the demand of that tonnage as it has

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. There is no better cargo fleet in the world, it is generally recognized, than the one on the Great Lakes.

Senator SIMMONS. Does that commerce have any advantage for investment in ships over our coastwise trade to the Panama Canal?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. They have great advantages on the Great Lakes for shipping for these reasons, that they have the material to build their ships, the coal is near, the ore is near, and they have the greatest possible advantages for building ships there. In fact, they can build ships there as cheaply, I venture to say, as they can anywhere, the type of ship which they build, which is not quite inherently so expensive as the ocean-going ships, for reasons that I need not go into. In addition they are free from foreign competition on the Lakes on account of the length of the Welland Canal locks; you can not get a ship of very large size through the Welland Canal. All of those things must be considered.

Senator SIMMONS. Would they not be free from any competition, excepting domestic competition, in our coastwise trade? They have domestic competition there?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. They have nothing but domestic competition in our coastwise trade?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Yes, that is true.

Senator SIMMONS. Have you any reason to believe that American capital will be any slower in providing the necessary ships to accommodate the coastwise trade after the canal is opened than there was to accommodate the same kind of traffic upon the Great Lakes?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Not so far as legislation relating strictly to the canal is concerned. There is the possibility, as I suggested earlier, of apprehension on account of the modification of the coasting laws, or anything of that kind.

Senator SIMMONS. I am speaking about the laws as they now exist.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chamberlain, I should like to quote one sentence from your report of 1911 and see whether it expresses your present view on the subject. I read from the last paragraph on page 17, as follows:

The Panama Canal will not only double the efficiency of the Navy, but in the hopes and expectations of its friends it will double the efficiency of our means of commercial communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It will permit a new and cheaper method of transportation between the seaboards, competing with the transcontinental railroads. Every dollar in tolls collected from cargoes or from ships which carry them en route from one seaboard to the other lessens to that extent the value of the canal as a competing transportation route.

Does that express your views to-day?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. May I look at that one moment?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. It is at the bottom of page 17.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. If I had occasion to write that sentence again, instead of saying "to that extent," I would say "to an extent,' because that looks like a statement that the dollar would be an exact measure of the effect. Well, I think that is too strong a sentence. I would say, "to an extent;" I would not say, "to the extent of the entire dollar," because, as I say, all business matters are not simple matters; you can not reduce them to two or three facts, as, of course, you know. I would say it lessens it to an extent, but whether I would say it was to the extent of 100 cents or 90 cents or 67 cents, I would not undertake to say. I would make that modification.

The CHAIRMAN. Considering the vast amount of merchandise and freight transported by the railroads, exceeding any amount of freight that may be conveyed by boats through the canal, it is estimated that the imposition of a toll of a dollar or a dollar and a quarter upon the boats will confer upon the competing railroads not only that $1.25, but a hundred times that, because of its much enlarged opportunities of imposing freight rates upon all its traffic. What is your view with respect to that situation?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. That is too large a question to put before me I do not know that I would be competent to answer it,

in a moment.

at any rate.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that is all. We are very much indebted to you.

Senator SHIELDS. One question. How far is the commercial transportation on our great rivers included in the coastwise trade? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Practically in its entirety.

Senator SHIELDS. That includes all of our great rivers, the Mississippi and its tributaries?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. Oh, yes. As I remarked, these ferryboats that run from here to Alexandria are coastwise vessels.

Senator SHIELDS. Could you give any estimate of the number of vessels that are engaged in the coastwise trade along these great rivers? Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. As distinguished from the rest of the country? Senator SHIELDS. Yes.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN. There is a division here that the western rivers, as they are called-that is, the Mississippi and its tributaries-1961. The term "western rivers" includes the Mississippi, the Missouri and its tributaries, and the Ohio.

Senator SIMMONS. Mr. Chamberlain, just one question. The rate of toll on the canal is $1.20 as now fixed, is it not?