be very much larger than that of the Suez Canal to-day.'

The tolls will probably be fixed at the Suez rate, i.e. $1.80. This would render the gross annual receipts at over eight million dollars on the assumed traffic for the first few years.

With reference to the human element, everything has changed and is changing in the American mercantile marine save the condition of its seamen. The maritime laws of America place the seaman in a position relatively far more unjust and degrading than that of his predecessors. In the matter of personal liberty he exists under all the disabilities which formerly oppressed the negro. In brief, he is a chattel, both in law and practice.

In law, the seaman is a "ward of Admiralty." His helpless condition under the ancient maritime laws, framed in 1790, is made the excuse for imposing upon him burdens "that could not be imposed upon other classes without depriving them of rights that were personal freedom." 2

Seamen," according to a recent Supreme Court judgment, are treated by Congress as deficient in that full and intelligent responsibility for their acts which is accredited to ordinary adults, and as needing the protection of the law in the

1 The net tonnage for 1901 through the Suez Canal shows an increase of 1,085,688 tons over that of 1900, and of 928,210 over 1899. The transit receipts, which amounted to 100,386,397 francs, were higher than any previous year since the opening of the canal, and show an increase of 9,762,789 francs as compared with those of 1900. No special reason can be assigned for the increase in the trade through the canal except that the economical situation of India has recently improved, and that there has been an increased activity in the trade with the East.

2 Mr. Justice Harlan.

same sense in which minors and wards are entitled to the protection of their parents and their guardians."

The maritime law of America derives its authority from the code of the Middle Ages, beginning with the Consolato del mare of indefinite antiquity, earlier than the thirteenth century.

In 1897, the Supreme Court rendered a decision which evinces the extreme conservatism of American law. Two years before, four seamen of the American barque Arago deserted at Astoria, Oregon. The brief set forth that the laws under which the seamen were held to servitude operated to deprive them of liberty and prosperity without the due process of law, to deprive them of the right of trial by jury, and to hold them to slavery and involuntary servitude, contrary to the Constitution. On the latter ground it was indeed contended that the law binding the seaman to fulfil his will is in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime.

The Courts sustained the historical statutes (" from the earliest historical period the contract of the sailor has been treated as an exceptional one "), and the sailors had to go back to their master.

The decision attracted wide attention, and was charged with signifying for the first time that the personal liberty of the citizen is not a right inherent in the fundamental law, but is merely a privilege enjoyed under the tenure of public opinion, and public policy among other instances.

At the present moment, an American boy named Amos Stone, a native of Boston, and the son of respectable

:

parents, is an inmate of a lunatic asylum at Seattle, Washington State, as the result of treatment received from officers on board an American ship. Another American boy, Ephraim Clark, has been confined in Thomaston Maine Penitentiary for twenty-five years, for mutiny under circumstances of extreme provocation. Such cases," says one critic, "contain a sufficient explanation of the native American's aversion to the sea. He sees the seaman, the driftwood of all races, brutalized at sea, robbed ashore, practically without redress, and an object of pity and contempt."

American ships are dreaded by the sailor the world over. America can never have a mercantile marine unless she reforms in this particular. The personal treatment endured by the seamen at the hands of the officers is not better than it was in Dana's day.

"Extreme brutality," says Mr. W. MacArthur, in his monograph on the subject," is the rule, almost without exception. It is a standing charge against our maritime law that it requires no qualification other than that of citizenship on the part of sailing-ship officers. Here America occupies a unique position among maritime nations. The consequence may be foreseen : the men in authority on board American ships are selected because of their ability to maltreat the wretched men under them, and not for their seamanship. This leads to the perpetration of the most wanton brutalities conceivable, by minds trained to ingenious methods of inflicting torture upon their subordinates, and undeterred by the fear of consequences, social or legal."

Pick up any American newspaper published in the Maritime States, and it is not unlikely you will come across the familiar case of a seaman just returned from a voyage, bringing charges against shipping officers, charges which seem incredible for inhumanity. But

the public is indifferent and apathetic or sceptical: the charges are dismissed with "monotonous regularity."

America is far behind Britain, Germany, Italy, and Denmark in her ancient laws for the treatment of the sailor, and she will have to alter this if her forthcoming mercantile marine is to become popular.

CHAPTER XI

TRUSTS AND COMBINES

INDUSTRIAL Consolidation has been carried far and carried quickly by America. Twelve or fourteen years ago there were not a dozen business combinations in the country which might, in the American language, appropriately be termed Trusts. Now there are nearly three hundred Trusts, covering the production of almost every article of daily use, from matches to sleeping-cars, and involving billions of capital. In one year alone (1899) the industrial combinations formed represented an authorized capitalization of two billion dollars, a sum equal to all metal currency in circulation in America.1

But there has lately come a second phase in the centralizing process. Some of the larger combinations are organized for the purpose of holding the stock of other corporations. A large company buys up all the stock of several other companies, and issues its own stock substantially in exchange. The profits of the constituent companies form the fund from which the dividends of the holding company are paid. In other

1 There are in 1902 exactly 287 Trusts, with an amount in capital stock scheduled at over five billion dollars, the outstanding bonds amounting to about two billions, and the total capitalization being close on seven billion dollars, or about a third of the entire manufacturing capital of America.