Speech #480082430

I am not prepared to say. but at that time and before much of the work of exporting and importing that was done was in small sailing vessels. now the great bulk of our commerce is carried on by great steamship lines. Many offices were established under the old sailingvessel system. then offices of considerable importance. but now. by the concentration of railroads at the great ports. business being transacted through great iron steamship companies. those small ports - have lost their importance and are no longer ports where return cargoes come. The Senator from Florida understands that one of the great reasons why the concentration of commerce is so great at the port of New York is that the return cargoes. the immigrants. and a thousand things that come to a great port that never come to a small one furnish a return cargo to vessels. and that tends to concentrate business at the great port of New York more and more every year. The difficulty we have with many of the Southern ports is not that we can not send goods abroad as cheaply but because the ships that go from these ports can get nothing to come back with. or so little that they can not afford to carry as cheaply as they can to and from New York. Hence conditions are changing. and when conditions change. then as prudent men we ought to change our legislation to correspond with them. and not keep up places that twenty. thirty. or forty years ago may have.been imiportant points. but which are now. absolutely unimportant. because they were at one time important.