The natural line of development for a policy of reciprocity will be in connection with those of our productions which no longer require all of the support once needed to establish them upon a sound basis, and with those others where either because of natural or of economic causes we are beyond the reach of successful competition.

I ask the attention of the Senate to the reciprocity treaties laid before it by my predecessor.

The condition of the American merchant marine is such as to call for immediate remedial action by the Congress.  It is discreditable to us as a Nation that our merchant marine should be utterly insignificant in comparison to that of other nations which we overtop in other forms of business.  We should not longer submit to conditions under which only a trifling portion of our great commerce is carried in our own ships.  To remedy this state of things would not .merely serve to build up our shipping interests, but it would also result in benefit to all who are interested in the permanent establishment of a wider market for American products, and would provide an auxiliary force for the Navy.  Ships work for their own countries just as railroads work for their terminal points.  Shipping lines, if established to the principal countries with which we have dealings, would be of political as well as commercial benefit.  From every standpoint it is unwise for the United States to continue to rely upon the ships of competing nations for the distribution of our goods.  It should be made advantageous to carry American goods in American-built ships.

At present American shipping is under certain great disadvantages when put in competition with the shipping of foreign countries.  Many of the fast foreign steamships, at a speed of fourteen knots or above, are subsidized; and all our ships, sailing vessels and steamers alike, cargo carriers of slow speed and mail carriers of high speed, have to meet the fact that the original cost of building American ships is greater than is the case abroad; that the wages paid American officers and seamen are very much higher than those paid the officers and seamen of foreign competing countries; and that the standard of living on our ships is far superior to the standard of living on the ships of our commercial rivals.

Our Government should take such action as will remedy these inequalities.  The American merchant marine should be restored to the ocean.

The Act of March 14, 1900, intended unequivocally to establish gold as the standard money and to maintain at a parity therewith all forms of money medium in use with us, has been shown to be timely and judicious.  The price of our Government bonds in the world’s market, when compared with the price of similar obligations issued by other nations, is a flattering tribute to our public credit.  This condition it is evidently desirable to maintain.

In many respects the National Banking Law furnishes sufficient liberty for the proper exercise of the banking function; but there seems to be need of better safeguards against the deranging influence of commercial crises and financial panics.  Moreover, the currency of the country should be made responsive to the demands of our domestic trade and commerce.