the second class to receive the subsidy rate per mile provided in the law of 1891 for steamers of the first class, and the third class the rate applicable to the second class.  If no contract should be made for a line between a Southern port and South American ports, and two or more should be established from Northern Atlantic ports, it was required that one of the latter should touch outward and homeward at two ports of call south of Cape Charles.  The total expenditure for foreign mail-service in any one year was limited—­not to exceed the estimated revenue therefrom for that year.[IL]

The bill came back from the committee on commerce in March without amendment, and with a report.[IM] In June it was put over for consideration in December of the third session of this Congress.  When at length it was reached, Senator Gallinger submitted a substitute.  This, instead of naming the points to be covered, provided for subsidized routes to South America south of the equator outward voyage; provided for one port of call instead of two on the Southern Atlantic coast; guarded against “discrimination detrimental to the public interest,” in other words “combines,” by a provision that no contract be awarded to any bidder engaged in any competitive transportation business by rail, or in the business of exporting or importing on his own account, or bidding for or in the interest of any person or corporation engaged in such business, or having control thereof through stock ownership or otherwise; and fixed the limit of the total expenditure for foreign mail service in any one year at four million dollars.  This substitute was finally passed on February 12, 1911, by a vote of 39 to 39, the chairman casting his vote in the affirmative.  In the House the measure went to the committee on post office and post roads; and there rested.

Various other subsidy bills and measures for the revival of the ocean merchant marine without subsidies, were put into this Congress, as in previous ones, but few escaped from the committees; and these few fell short of passage.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote FS:  Wells, chaps. 4 and 5, pp. 58-94.  Also Rept. of commissioner of navigation for 1909.]

[Footnote FT:  U.S.  Statutes at Large.  Also Rept. of commission of navigation, 1909.]

[Footnote FU:  Marvin, pp. 240-241.]

[Footnote FV:  U.S.  Statutes at Large, vol.  V, p. 748.]

[Footnote FW:  This contract in Executive Document, 30th Cong., 1st sess, no. 50.]

[Footnote FX:  U.S.  Statutes at Large, vol.  IX, p. 152.]

[Footnote FY:  Meeker.]

[Footnote FZ:  U.S.  Statutes at Large, vol.  IX, p. 187.]

[Footnote GA:  Meeker.]

[Footnote GB:  For the Sloo contract see Exec.  Does., 32nd Congr., 1st sess., no. 91.]

[Footnote GC:  For this contract see Exec.  Docs., 32nd Cong., 1st sess., no. 91.]