of the great and friendly Republics of South America.  Following the failure of the shipbuilding bill we lost our only American line of steamers to Australasia, and that loss on the Pacific has become a serious embarrassment to the people of Hawaii, and has wholly cut off the Samoan islands from regular communication with the Pacific coast.  Puget Sound, in the year, has lost over half (four out of seven) of its American steamers trading with the Orient.

We now pay under the act of 1891 $4 a statute mile outward to 20-knot American mail steamships, built according to naval plans, available as cruisers, and manned by Americans.  Steamships of that speed are confined exclusively to trans-Atlantic trade with New York.  To steamships of 16 knots or over only $2 a mile can be paid, and it is steamships of this speed and type which are needed to meet the requirements of mail service to South America, Asia (including the Philippines), and Australia.  I strongly recommend, therefore, a simple amendment to the ocean mail act of 1891 which shall authorize the Postmaster-General in his discretion to enter into contracts for the transportation of mails to the Republics of South America, to Asia, the Philippines, and Australia at a rate not to exceed $4 a mile for steamships of 16 knots speed or upwards, subject to the restrictions and obligations of the act of 1891.  The profit of $3,600,000 which has been mentioned will fully cover the maximum annual expenditure involved in this recommendation, and it is believed will in time establish the lines so urgently needed.  The proposition involves no new principle, but permits the efficient discharge of public functions now inadequately performed or not performed at all.

Not only there is not now, but there never has been, any other nation in the world so wholly free from the evils of militarism as is ours.  There never has been any other large nation, not even China, which for so long a period has had relatively to its numbers so small a regular army as has ours.  Never at any time in our history has this Nation suffered from militarism or been in the remotest danger of suffering from militarism.  Never at any time of our history has the Regular Army been of a size which caused the slightest appreciable tax upon the tax-paying citizens of the Nation.  Almost always it has been too small in size and underpaid.  Never in our entire history has the Nation suffered in the least particular because too much care has been given to the Army, too much prominence given it, too much money spent upon it, or because it has been too large.  But again and again we have suffered because enough care has not been given to it, because it has been too small, because there has not been sufficient preparation in advance for possible war.  Every foreign war in which we have engaged has cost us many times the amount which, if wisely expended during the preceding years of peace on the Regular Army, would have insured the war ending