The extraordinary growth of American foreign trade since 1922 is rapidly restoring maritime affairs to their normal place in our national life, and hence reviving our traditional “sea-mindedness.” It is only the last two generations of Americans who have been engrossed almost exclusively with the extensive development of vast internal resources.
The seven generations before them looked to the sea as a primary means of domestic transportation and an indispensable agency of national business and prosperity. The connection which the sea gave to the outside world for the carriage of exportable surplus goods and of needful imports, was then, as it is once more, a cardinal factor in our national economics.
Of the economic crisis which came to New England in 1641 as a reflex of the Civil War in the mother country, Governor Winthrop wrote:
All foreign commodities grew scarce, and our own of no price. Corn would buy nothing; a cow which cost last year £30 might now be bought for £4 or £5…These straits set our people on work to provide fish, clapboards, plank, etc. and to look out to the West Indies for a trade.
Henceforth, sea-borne commerce was to become the very foundation of Colonial prosperity, and subsequently of national prosperity. The hard times of 1641, notwithstanding a surplus production of food, furnished our first proof that overseas trade is essential to our prosperity. The same principle has been amply demonstrated several times since then, notably during the Jefferson Embargo of 1807, and is dwelt upon here because of recent propaganda against our having a Navy equal to the strongest on the ground that we are self-supporting in food and many other necessaries.
Interference with Colonial maritime commerce was a prime cause of the Revolutionary War, which was begun more to obtain commercial freedom than political independence. The outstanding importance of ocean trade to the national welfare again became evident under the Articles of Confederation. The inability of that feeble government to regulate, protect, and maintain our trade against foreign competition was a principal cause of the formulation and adoption of the Constitution.
The new government had been scarcely organized before President Washington recommended to Congress (December, 1790) respecting our Mediterranean trade: “So many circumstances unite in rendering the present state of it distressful to us, that you will not think any deliberations misplaced which may lead to its relief and protection.” This led to the introduction of the first naval bill in January, 1794, for the building of a “naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States against the Algerine corsaire.”
Thus was the American Navy born, not for “coast defense,” nor for “national defense” in the commonly accepted sense of today, but for the protection of American sea-borne trade, which fundamentally is the true mission of all navies and the basic element of naval policy.
Bred by immutable economic law, the nation and its Navy continued to be highly trade conscious until the Civil War, when domestic affairs assumed an overshadowing importance, and were held so by subsequent internal development until the World War. Old naval records teem with references to sea-borne trade in its every aspect. The Navy then clearly recognized its basic mission. As for the attitude of the country at large we need only recall the facts that the Barbary Wars, the quasi war with France in 1798, the War of 1812, several large expeditions against West Indian pirates, and the quasi war with Paraguay in 1859-60, besides many lesser resorts to force, all had their origins in interference with American maritime commerce. In addition the government was constantly employing the Navy to promote foreign trade. Perry’s opening of Japan is but one example.
It took the World War to wake us from our lethargy respecting maritime affairs into which we had fallen during the Civil War. In 1914-15 foreign merchant ships upon which we had then come to depend almost exclusively for the carriage of our trade were withdrawn wholesale for war use by the Allies. There was virtually no American marine to replace them. So we learned again the old lesson which had been forcibly demonstrated for us in 1641, 1807, 1813-14, and 1900 (Boer War). Ability to produce a surplus of food and many other necessaries is no substitute for a foreign trade when it comes to ensuring the livelihood and even reasonable prosperity of many millions of our population.
The World War demonstration was peculiar in the variety of ways in which this lesson was rammed home. There was first the withdrawal of foreign shipping already mentioned. Then, as belligerent demands for goods rose to unparalleled heights and our commerce again flourished, we experienced from both sides in the great conflict that acute interference with our trade which one belligerent is always prone to adopt towards the neutral supplies destined for his enemy. Finally, even before we entered the war, our commerce was subjected to direct hostile attack.
The whole set of circumstances was sufficient to convince the American people, let us hope permanently, that the national interests from all angles emphatically require a merchant marine rationally proportioned to our sea-borne trade, and a Navy at least of such strength as will deter even hard-pressed belligerents from unwarranted interference with our legally conducted trade.
The state of mind of America at the close of the war went even beyond this. A President and cabinet, which as late as 1916 were more genuinely and frankly pacifistic than any before them, in 1919 were ardent supporters of the most colossal government merchant-marine and naval building program in history. Every American understood what foreigners were prone to disbelieve, that these were not evidences of militarism, but an expression of economic policy flowing from fundamental conditions.
Under the impulse of her genius for quantity production, backed with vast natural resources and superior racial characteristics, the United States had become a gigantic producer in almost every field of industry. On a greater scale our situation closely paralleled that of England in the youth of her “industrial revolution” which burst the bounds of insularity and irresistibly transformed her into the world leader of wealth and power.
For a superlative producer nation, and especially for one occupying an insular position, like the United States and Great Britain, merchant shipping and navy are the handmaidens of economic welfare. Since the war they have been an important influence in the great strides which have been made in our foreign commerce, and hence in our domestic prosperity. Unless all signs fail, these last ten years mark merely the beginning of an extraordinary era of development in which shipping, safeguarded by a navy, is to play a vital part.
Let us translate some of these generalities into a more concrete picture. The latest available official statistics (for the year 1927) give the total value of our ocean-borne foreign trade as 8.47 billion dollars, and the value of our ocean-going coastwise trade as six billions. The latter figure includes only strictly high-seas traffic, and excludes the Great Lakes and inland waterways; much of it traverses very long ocean voyages. Our aggregate deep-sea trade then amounts to 14.5 billion dollars every year.
That this is a large sum even for modern times is evidenced by the fact that the final German reparations settlement which has kept Europe in such a turmoil for the last decade amounted to about nine billion dollars. Our total national debt is now less than seventeen billions.
It is obvious what a vital element such a volume of maritime commerce must be in the national economic life. In his pre-election speech in Boston, on October 16, 1928, Mr. Hoover said:
Our total volume of exports translates itself into employment for 2,400,000 families, while its increase in the last seven years has interpreted itself into livelihood for 500,000 additional families in the United States. And in addition to this, millions more families find employment in the manufacture of imported raw materials. The farmer has a better market for his produce by reason of their employment.
It is well to bear such statistics in mind in appraising the degree of the responsibility resting upon the Navy for the protection of such a sea-borne trade. They are the best answer to the constant criticism made in certain quarters regarding the financial burden of naval armaments. A few months ago the country seemed quite shocked at the statement of an American official that the naval ships projected by the United States during the next fifteen years would cost $1,170,000,000. Of course this is a large sum which should not be spent unnecessarily. But what it is supposed to be spent for should also be considered. Fifteen years from now, allowing for a 5 per cent annual increase, our sea-borne trade should be worth thirty billion dollars in that year alone. The aggregate of our trade carried between now and then on this basis will be 327.88 billions. This somehow makes 1.17 billions for ships to protect the trade seem rather moderate.
Since sound naval policies are necessarily derivatives of national maritime interests, it is but natural that today we have rejuvenated the old-time arguments in favor of a large merchant marine, and a strong Navy. The transitory apathy towards these great national assets has gone with the temporary conditions which created it. No more in 1929 than in 1860 do we place credence in the sophistry which would leave the sea transport of our goods in the hands of trade competitors and would relegate the mission of our Navy to merely coast defense.
Henceforth the greatest producer and economic unit which the world has known, situated at the world’s maritime center, must inevitably link up domestic production, foreign sources of raw materials, overseas markets, merchant marine, and Navy. In coast defense, protection against invasion, safeguarding our overseas possessions, reenforcing our diplomacy, and supporting our general political policies, the Navy as always will continue to play an important role.
But in the largest perspective the Navy must more and more come to be recognized as an economic agency—as a basic factor in the country’s business upon which the livelihood and prosperity of our citizenry depend.