Mr. SPALDING. If I had the honor, Mr. Speaker, to represent the State of Maine, as my learned friends do who have spoken on this question, I have no doubt I should be on the same side as they, because for a longer pe riod of time than has passed over my head the shipbuilding interest of Maine has been o tected by ourrcgistry laws. I hold that our 5 up builders now can without this protection comete with those of any portion of the globe. here is no doubt about that. On the 2nd day of the present session I introduced a bill to change our registry law to enable every bona fide American owner of a ship to obtain a register under our laws, subject to the discretion of the SecyTrreasury. That bill is now in the hands of the committee; but I understand that it isto be given the goby, and that our registry laws are to be preserved, as they have been for years to come, for the benefit of the shipbuilders of Maine. Now, sir, I commend the gentlemen fortheir industry in protectingtheir important interest. But I am the Representative of a section of the country which is engaged in commerce inland commerce, if you pleasebutnevertheless an extensive interest, and one that is growing every day and every hour and I am applied to every day by individual owners of vessels to have a law passed to give them the right to register vessels that have been bought from the Canadians. But they cannot have that privilege. On the contrary, if any of my constituents engaged in foreign commerce see fitto obtain alicense of the British authorities, (which I hope none of them will be obliged to (le) for the purpose of running their vessels in the neighborhood of a piratical flag, they are now to be put under the ban. Wb I I have yet to learn that lesson in ethics which makes it necessary to punish these men for resorting to this course for the purpose of protecting their property. Is there anything wrong in it? Is there anything unpatriotic in it? Because some portion ofour citizens, unfortunately, I am sorry for it, have been compelled to make sacrifices of their slii s fired upon the ocean by a piratical flag, oug it we to have others of our citizens subjected to inconvenience, because they resorted to another mode to save their ships from the same disaster? What sort of morality calls for that 2