“In Shipping all Industries Unite.” 
(D(B)N1FMMMN(DM 
-OF TIIE- 
American Shipping & Industrial League, 
HELD AT 
Pensacola, Fla., Nov. 10-12,’86. 
-A-IDIDIHIESS OUST 
elation ol to j[nter^ts 
BY 
JOSEPH HOLT, M. D„ 
President, Board of Health, State of Louisiana. TO THE:- 
President and Members 
OF THE 
American Shipping i Industrial league. 
Pensacola, November lltli, 1880. 
Gentlemen: 
In responding to the invitation to address you on this occasion, I 
do so fully mindful of the fact that I am dealing with a most intricate 
problem, involving questions of commercial reciprocity* between 
nations, and the development of subsidiary industries of infinite 
variety as tributary feeders to the currents of trade. Nor am I 
unmindful that these remarks are directed to an audience of capitalists, 
of merchants, of men whose whole training of thought is in accordance 
with the strict principles of business; whose impulses are progressive; 
and whose purpose it is to bring under control new fields of commerce; 
to open new lines of industry and to make great additions to the 
general sum of the wealth and happiness of the entire country, through 
the instrumentality of American enterprise. 
Among the subjects pertinent to the general purpose, and formu- 
lated for the particular consideration of this convention, your 
committee has been pleased to honor the Louisiana State Board of 
Health by referring to myself for elucidation, the following : 
“No. 5. Can a state of public health be maintained at the Gulf Ports 
“ while constant intercourse is had with the Tropics V 
Viewed from any point of observation, whether from that of 
humanity or science, whether from that of the grand future of com- 
merce with our exterior or interior connections, the solution of this 
question is the most important and absolutely imperative that can 
engage the attention of the scientists, the statesmen, or the merchants 
of the Gulf States and Mississippi Valley. To relieve it of all ambiguity of expression, let us turn the question 
over and state it backwards:—Is it possible to maintain constant 
intercourse with the Tropics without sacrificing the public health of 
the Gulf Ports ? 
And finally let us state it in this wise: Must the Gulf Ports con- 
tinue to sacrifice their commerce, as a last resort, in order to maintain 
the public health ? Must they starve their people to save them ? 
Whatever my own convictions on this point, to express them fiatly 
by declaring that sanitary interest can be reconciled with the com- 
mercial and industrial necessities of these ports, would savor of a too 
forward assumption, and the assertion of opinion amounting to 
audacity, without enlightening the specific question, or convincing the 
reason, or in any manner satisfying the judgment. 
In the first place is it true ? Is the extension of commerce from the 
Gulf Pofts to inter-tropical regions actually dependent on the satis- 
factory solution of the public health question, at least so much thereof 
as may be affected by free communication ? 
I will answer this dogmatically by saying that, however 
much the States of the Gulf may depend upon unrestrained com- 
merce for the development of their resources and attainment 
of a higher civilization, characterized by a more numerous 
population, greater wealth, and greater political significance, 
and however much capitalists and business men with unlimited 
resources, may endeavor to achieve this higher destiny by sheer force 
of indomitable courage and the energetic spirit of enterprise, are 
all in vain, and a wasteful expenditure of power, unless there has been 
securely laid, as the bottom-most foundation upon which must rest the 
entire fabric of the exalted prosperity of this people, the perfect recon- 
ciliation between the interests of the public health, and all the interests 
comprehended in the public livelihood. 
Your accumulated capital and your genius may project vast enter- 
prises ; may out canals; build inter-oceanic railways; jetty the Missis- 
sippi; deepen harbors; establish international exchanges and steam- 
ship lines—your genius and energy may do all this, but you will never 
establish in the Gulf ports of the Southern States a commerce upon a solid foundation, until municipal authorities and the States themselves 
recognize at their true commercial value the principles of sanitation 
and apply themselves earnestly and vigorously to a reformation in tlio 
methods of cleansing and purifying their cities, and cease to intiict 
arbitrary measures, declaring embargoes upon trade as the only 
remedy for their own deficiencies. 
dust as the aggressive movement of an army must be conducted in 
strict accordance with established principles of war, so must your 
movements in reaching out from the Gulf ports of these States to 
encompass with your commercial and industrial enterprise the regions- 
of the Tropics; so must your aggressive efforts be controlled by 
fundamental principles which you may obey, but can never command. 
As a skilful general prepares for an invasion by first securing his 
base of operations, and above all, by keeping open his communication, 
with the interior, so must you not only establish reliably your own 
immediate base, but above all fix and definitely settle your relations 
with the interior. 
Pensacola may open her port; Galveston and Mobile may open 
tlisir’s and declare them opened to the world for the whole year around, 
but what profiteth this if the people of the interior are not agreed? 
New Orleans may boast of free intercourse with Mexico and Central 
America regardless of yellow fever prevalance in their ports. The 
boast may be true in fact, but is only an idle vaporing in result, if 
Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee and Arkansas say : “You must keep such 
trade strictly to yourself, for we object, and shall emphasize our 
objection by quarantining your railroads and steamboats, and by 
locking you in”. 
You must perfect your interior relations, gentlemen, for these ports 
cannot be opened to the full tide of commerce except by and with the 
consent of the interior. 
The right of self-protection is inalienable, and it matters not whether 
it be an individual, or a community, or a State, when they exercise that 
right as a natural prerogative, there is no alternative, but that it must be 
allowed. Not only therefore, must you harmonize in its local aspect 
the preservation of the public health and commerce, but in doing so you must bring into close relation with this adjustment the States and 
communities constituting the interior. 
Having accomplished this much, your strategic operations in foreign 
fields are simply a question of brains, capital and push. 
Before proceeding further in this direction, let us examine, somewhat 
analytically, this “Quarantine and Commerce” problem in strict ac- 
cordance with logical procedure. 
Let us first agree upon the terms of the problem and if acceptable, 
project the investigation in a direct line from precedent to consequent 
until we reach a conclusion. 
Quoting from a report entitled “Quarantine in its relations to the 
Commerce of New Orleans with West Indian, Mexican, Central and 
South American States,” and addressed by myself to the joint-commit- 
tee ot the Commercial Bodies of New Orleans, 1884, I will here reiter- 
ate the three axioms which *1 conceive to embody all of the natural laws 
of trade in relation to the subject you have propounded in question 
No. 5. 
“There are three natural laws governing commercial movement, as 
profound, as universal, and invariable as the law of gravity which 
determines the rotation of the planets around the sun; more persist- 
ently operative than international or local regulations. 
1st. The currents of trade seek the shortest course. 
2d. It is a law of commerce, as of fluids, to follow the course of least 
resistance. 
3rd. With increase of distance traversed, there must he increased 
assurance of unohstructed entry.” 
I will here add a 
4th. In the interchange of products, the movement of commerce is not 
along isothermal lines or parallels of latitude, hut from North to South 
across them, and therefore, coincident with longitude. 
That currents of trade seek the shortest course under the unseen and 
sometimes almost inappreciable influences which control their motion, 
addresses itself so palpably to the reason as to need but little said 
in explanation. Not only is it proven by all experience, but is plainly 
demonstrated in the fact that any departure is not an exception to the law, but is invariably duo to an obstruction blocking the way. 
While the statement of this axiom sounds as trite as a mere platitude, 
yet it is a natural law under the tremendous pressure of whose influ- 
ence the Suez Canal was cut, saving the distance around the Cape of 
Good Hope; it is the subtle influence which projected transcontinental 
railways, two and three thousand miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
traversing regions known in the older geographies as the Great Ameri- 
can Desert; it is under the pressure of this law that Lesseps is digging 
and blasting away at the Panama Canal; a force which will presently 
span the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and also Honduras with inter-oceanic 
railroads, as great arterial carriers and channels of trade between the 
continents and nations and peoples of the East and the West; between 
the Mississippi valley, the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, 
England and Europe on the one hand, and Australia, China, Japan,, 
the Indian Ocean and the American Pacific seaboard, on the other mj 
avoiding the deflection and thousands of miles of travel with its inci- 
dent dangers around Cape Horn. 
The mighty current of traders already pounding and cutting its way 
across the American Isthmus; and when its floods burst through, and 
pour headlong into the Carribean Sea and Mexican Gulf its tide of 
wealth, will these Gulf ports be open to invite it hitherwards, taking a 
ready advantage of this same law of seeking the shortest course, or 
will they be barred in by proclamations of non-intercourse or lengthy 
quarantine detention ? 
The tide of trade will surely set this way; but it is a law of com- 
merce as of fluids, u to follow the course of least resistanceIf this 
flood, setting across the Gulf towards these shores, meets with sandbars 
blocking the harbors, and mud lumps blocking the rivers, and quaran- 
tine blocking the ports, the current will gently glide in the direction 
of least resistance, toward Baltimore, New York and Europe; and will 
shortly cut a channel in that direction so deep, that no amount of coax- 
ing or persuasion can ever deflect it. If, however, that current is to 
flow straight through the Gulf ports into the heart of this continent, 
tlie question must be decided at once and preparation made to-day. 
As an abundant preliminary offering, the trade of Mexico, Central and South America and the West Indies is open to you now, but prep- 
aration for its reception must be made, and obstacles must be removed, 
particularly in dealing’ with vessels or freight from great distances; for 
with increase of the distance traversed there must he increased assurance 
of unobstructed entry.v Not only shall you not declare a prolonged de- 
tention, but you must remove every possible moment of delay to a ship 
which has winged her way from Buenos Ayres or from Rio de Janeiro, 
to freights from Melbourne or Hong Kong transhipped over Hondura- 
neau or Tehuantepec or other isthmian passage. You may detain these 
once, but you will never touch that trade again ! 
Therefore, gentlemen, as the only logical conclusion deduced from a 
philosophical analysis of the propositions which we agreed upon as the 
basis of our investigation, and trying your cause by the organic laws 
of your own calling, which is commerce with her hand maiden, finance, 
you are compelled to halt right here, and dare not move forward 
another inch, until you have reconciled those clashing interests, the 
public health and the public livelihood ; until you have harmonized in 
peaceful unity, quarantine and commer#1. 
If this cannot be decided favorably, your labors are in vain and it 
were well you do not begin. 
In warding off pestilence, quarantine is indispensable; but quaran- 
tine, even at its best, is an obstruction, and five days is the maximum 
detention commerce can safely bear without ruinous deflection. 
A quarantine of ten days as effectually destroys commerce eventually, as- 
non-intercourse. The only difference is one of a force slowly or quickly 
applied. • 
The necessities of modern civilization are wholly in the direction of 
rapid transit. If a particular port does not choose to adapt itself to 
this higher law, it must endure the consequences in a complete trans- 
fer of its trade to ports in competition, where wisdom and shrewd- 
ness combine for the preservation of the public interest in its entirety; 
the public health and the public wealth. 
When New Orleans, Mobile and Pensacola close their gateways, 
they starve their own children and feed the hungry multitudes of 
rival cities. Can auy but an enemy or a fool saturated with ignorance 
insist upon the continuance of such a ruinous course ? The problem of quarantine and commerce, although confronting 
you sharply at this moment, is not a question only of to-day, but it 
has stood unanswered, the vexation and • the curse of maritime ports 
and of governments from the earliest record of pestilential invasion 
along the highways of trade and travel, down to the period when the 
Louisiana State Board of Health concentrated upon this riddle the 
light and resources of modern science, in order to compel a solution. 
We believe that we have solved it; but time alone can demonstrate! 
Not from choice, but under the compulsion of necessity, the State of 
Louisiana, from her own scant treasury took thirty thousand dollars 
to devote to experiment in solving the quarantine problem. 
Thirty thousand dollars voted for an experiment! 
This ceases to be strange when we consider for a moment that, 
modern enlightenment signifies the present condition of man through 
developmental processes of experiment. To take from him the results 
of experiment compelled by necessity, means to relegate the human 
creature to his primitive existence, clothed in the skins of wild beasts 
and sheltering with them in caves. 
The gulf ports are certainly no exception to this rule. 
To find relief, and to attain wealth and greatness, they must do so 
by following the rugged path of experiment, the only highway of 
human progress, and must abandon the dreamy speculations and theo- 
retical abstractions which have held the medical and through it the pub- 
lic mind in a state of apathy; bewildered and moving in a circle of endless 
suggestion and controversy, but never advancing. 
It is positively certain that under the old policy of sitting still and 
trying no experiments, but relying on detention as constituting the 
virtue and main reliance of quarantine, foreign pestilences have swept 
the country so frequently, that boards of health have been ompelled 
to increase the detention, ten, twenty, forty days, and finally to aban- 
don quarantine altogether and to declare absolute non-intercourse as 
the final result of that fatal contentment, of that indolence, sometimes 
called conservatism, which tries no experiment. 
The merchants of New Orleans, interested in tropical trade develop- 
ment, and especially the members of the Mexican Exchange, came forward with a hearty will and cashed at their face value some fifteen 
thousand dollars of State warrants, which were considerably below 
par, in order to give the matter an immediate impulse; for affairs had 
become desperate under the proclamations of 11011-intercourse and 
twenty and forty days quarantine, emanating from the advice of 
boards of health. 
Within six weeks time from the beginning of the work, the appro- 
priate buildings and the invention of appliances were completed, the 
“ New System of Maritime Sanitation ” was set in smoothly working 
operation, and the portal of the Valley of the Mississippi was flung 
wide open, early in June, 1884, to the commerce of the whole world, 
and vessels from cholera and yellow fever ports invited to come; and 
all of that, gentlemen, with the full knowledge and consent of Texas, 
Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and all the States of the 
interior, northward to the great lakes. That portal has never been 
closed for an hour since. The interior is satisfied, because the public 
health has not been sacrificed. 
During the quarantine season just closed, and which extended from 
the 10th of May to the 31st of October, in the place of almost nothing, 
certainly from tropical ports, as heretofore, under the old regime of 
extended detention, there passed under treatment of Maritime Sani- 
tation, 219 vessels, of which 1GG were steamships ; 120 vessels were 
detained from three to five days, and 99 vessels were freighted with 
cargoes of tropical fruit and treated, but not detained. Six vessels 
with yellow fever on board were detained jan average period of twelve 
days in the Lower Station in Pass a l’Outre, for infected vessels oidy. 
The whole system has been operated with the precision with which 
one would run a first-class daily paper; and we were not afraid to run 
it either. 
I will present a few figures as a reply to some of our sux>erficial 
economists who flippantly dispose of our tropical trade as a few bana- 
nas, some pine-apples and a few bags of coffee; a commerce which 
has not been developed because there has been no concerted effort of 
laborers in a field teeming with the richest products of the earth; and 
whose flood of gold alone, two hundred years ago, according to Buckle,fwrecked the kingdom of Spain ! 
Under a policy of exceptional leniency on the part of the Board of 
Health, this same despised banana and other tropical fruit business in 
New Orleans, in five years, jumped from $133,000 to $020,000, and has 
been booming ahead ever since. 
When the quarantine embargo was taken off the coffee trade, last 
year, the import rose from 20,000,000 pounds to 44,000,000 pounds, and 
is still on the rise! 
Wliat Louisiana has done, Texas, Mississippi,’Alabama, and Florida 
can more easily do. 
Their State treasuries can better afford it; and the expenditure 
would require to be much less, considering that they do not represent 
in the work the whole Mississippi Valley. 
Why do not these States foster their commerce and help themselves, 
and in all matters of quarantine depend only upon themselves rather 
than committing so important a trust to any agent but their own % 
1 seriously question, gentlemen, in making the effort so essential to 
their prosperity, but that the Congressional appropriation, called the 
u Epidemic Fund,” stands in the way as a far greater curse than a 
blessing. 
This fund was voted from the National Treasury in the spirit of 
charity. 
It is now a subject of discussion by modern philanthropists if free 
handed charity does not cultivate improvidence, a spirit of indifference, 
of negligence, and really create a lazzaroni. 
These States are abundantly able to take care of themselves, and 
should be made to do so by compulsory self-reliance; and the wisest 
and most beneficent thing Congress can do, is to turn back into the 
Treasury this “ Epidemic Fund” and apple of discord, to be expended 
in the development of National resources. But in the matter of 
quarantine assistance beware, lest in accepting gifts you barter a 
birth right for a mess of pottage! National interference in yellow 
fever affairs has been a failure except in begetting trouble. 
To permit a Federal finger in the quarantine affairs of a State, is the 
concession of an inherent right, fraught with danger, and should never be tolerated under any circumstances. The framers of the con- 
stitution never contemplated such absorption of local police power. 
The strength of an adjustment between quarantine and commerce 
in the Gulf ports, rests solely in the assumption of responsibility by 
the States themselves; not parting to the Federal Government any 
prerogative or dividing control in quarantine management; for human 
flesh is weak, and the temptation to discriminate against these Gulf 
ports is worse than dangerous under the pressure of the hundreds of 
millions of gold representing the hostile interests of trans-continental 
railroads and associated steamship lines centered in the cities of the 
Northern Atlantic seaboard. 
Even if you suffer, make no concession of a right which commits you, 
in giving a part, to sacrifice the whole. 
Knowing the power of gold to affect legislation in the halls of the 
National Capitol, as is generally believed and cannot be successfully 
denied, commit no such trust as this to a National Board or Bureau 
of a few men, aliens to your cause; and still less, to any one man in 
any department of the National service, to hold the pulsations of your 
commercial heart subject to the autocratic pressure of his thumb. Let 
the State confide this power only to its own servants, whom it may make 
or unmake, according to its sovereign will. 
Returning to the thread of our subject and summing the whole mat- 
ter in a few words: By what process may the Gulf Ports maintain the 
public health while permitting free communication with Inter-tropical 
Ports % 
The reply is by turning to science, and to science alone, as offering 
the only hope of reconciliation between quarantine and commerce. 
In offering words of encouragement I am not speaking to you of the 
shadow of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen, but of 
that which is and is actually in practical demonstration, when I point 
you to the Valley of the Mississippi and its outlet, the port of New 
Orleans, resting securely behind the beneficent system of Maritime 
Sanitation, obstructive to the importation of pestilence, but keeping 
open the highway of commerce. 
A physical bar, obstructing the mouth of the Mississippi river, pre- 
sented itself for years as a formidable obstacle to the commerce of the great Valley. 
The genius of Eads has overcome this physical bar; but of what 
avail would have been the expenditure of genius, of the $5,000,000, and 
the enormous amount of labor, had not the necessity of the very exist- 
ence of New Orleans as a commercial emporium compelled the State 
to jetty the quarantine, and limit it to a narrow channel, at all times 
open to trade? 
That which has been done by Louisiana can also be done easily by 
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. 
If these care for commercial intercourse, and would seek it, they 
must jetty their quarantines, even before they do their harbors, as the 
first and most essential prerequisite. 
It is not pertinent to the inquiry to enter here into a description of 
the methods and appliances of Maritime Sanitation. It is sufficient to 
state that in the place of protracted detention, which has always 
proven itself an ally to pestilence but destructive to commerce, the 
new system contemplates the detention of a ship only such time, as may 
be required to cleanse her by the aid of powerful appliances, as speedily 
as can be effected by skill and steam. 
In the case of ships from yellow fever infected ports, and therefore 
having a foul bill of health, but presenting a clear health record, there 
is a detention of from three to five days, according to distance tra- 
versed. 
In the case of actually infected vessels, these are remanded to an 
isolated station, removed from the highway of commerce, and for 
infected vessels only, and are there treated with a severity of cleansing 
and disinfection, which immediately changes all the conditions of the 
ship from an infected to a disinfected vessel. The sick, in the meantime, 
have been removed to a comfortable hospital, with medical attend- 
ance and every convenience and comfort that could be desired. 
The Port of New Orleans, having confidence in its protective regula- 
tions, does not cry out to the plague-smitten ship seeking asylum for 
its sick and dyiug, “Go away ! go back and toss, hopeless and helpless 
upon the sea, like the 1 Ancient Mariner,’ to die forsaken !” but resting 
her faith upon the stability of natural law, in obedience to which Maritime Sanitation was created, slie says to the cholera and yellow 
fever-stricken vessel, “ Come, that we may cleanse you of pestilence, 
and may assuage the suflering and sorrow of the afflicted and send you 
on your way rejoicing.” 
In that port the unreasoning terror and hideous brutality of the old 
system has given way to the tender sympathy of the new. 
The simplicity of the system of Maritime Sanitation makes it avail- 
able even for ports having small commercial intercourse. 
In harmonizing the preservation of the public health with the neces- 
sities of commerce, as we have to deal with it in the Gulf Ports there 
are three essential elements upon which success depends. 
1. To keep out pestilence by a strictly scientific system of maritime 
sanitation, which should properly begin in the thorough treatment of 
a vessel in the port of departure previously to taking in cargo. The 
latter is an exceedingly important part of the process, to secure which, 
the Louisiana State Board of Health has earnestly endeavored to en- 
list the attention of the National Government, with a view of estab- 
lishing in all foreign ports, from whence pestilence might be introduced, 
consular agents, whose duty it shall be to see that all vessels clearing 
for the United States shall be in a perfect sanitary condition before 
taking in cargo, and at the moment of departure. 
They shall also certify to the number and health of all on board, and 
to the health and sanitary condition of the ports in which they are lo- 
cated, which constitutes a bill of health. 
The method of quarantine sanitation should begin its work at the 
port of departure and be completed at the port of entry, to include ap- 
proved methods of ship sanitation under competent authority dur- 
ing the voyage of a vessel from one port to another. 
2. In case that pestilence from any direction should enter, it is the 
adopted policy of the Louisiana State Board of Health, to report at 
once “every actual” or “suspected” case of cholera or yellow fever; 
in so doing we have recognized the right of every citizen to be in- 
stantly informed of danger threatening himself and his family; recog- 
nizing, also, that the only hope of subduing pestilence is to deal with 
it as we do with fire, by extinguishing the first spark, instead of wait- ing for the proof of tire in the spread of conflagration. 
This timely information enables us to fight the disease, and to make 
an intelligent effort to quench a pestilence by isolation and disinfec- 
tion ; the only hope! 
•3. The consent of all who are concerned in the keeping out of pes- 
tilence. This can only be accomplished by an alliance between the 
seaboard and the States of the interior upon the the basis of confidence 
begotten of truth, in the outspoken announcement of pestilence or of 
that which is reasonably “suspicious” of pestilence, in order that all 
may be timely warned; and, in watching the progress of disease, may 
act with proper caution in self-preservation, while avoiding panic and 
unnecessary severity of protective measures. 
This confidence, without which all else is impossible, is secured 
through the medium of “Inter-State Notification,” previously 
agreed upon by specific treaty; dependent upon the honor, courage 
and fidelity of boards of health and the medical profession. 
The necessity of being prepared to fight pestilence as we do fire, to 
prevent its spread in the event of its appearance inside the lines of 
quarantine defence, is a point constantly dwelt upon and urged by 
the Louisiana State Board of Health ; for no quarantine, however 
perfect, can afford absolute, but only a relative guaranty of safety, 
in direct proportion to its degree of perfection; but never absolute. 
The same must be said of the fire department, of every system of 
railroad signals, of every passenger train and line of ocean steamers, 
and of all the resources of the medical profession. 
Again it must be remembered that no system of quarantine can 
give a relative guaranty except for the one avenue of entry it 
specifically defends. The possible introduction of pestilence through 
a multitude of highways not so guarded must be considered, and 
their faults not counted against quarantine as a failure. 
Because we cannot attain the absolute in practice, it does not fol- 
low that we shall not accept the best relative guaranty of safety. 
In the matter of quarantine improvement, we are compelled by in- 
creasing need to search for a better security, on account of the utter 
failure of old methods to protect against pestilential invasion, while they have sacrificed commercial and industrial interests, vital to our 
existence. 
The effort is not of choice, hut is made under the compulsion of necessity. 
Let this fact be constantly borne in mind. 
Quarantine Maintenance. 
To prevent the introduction of pestilence while imposing the least 
hindrance to commerce, is the established maxim of an honestly con- 
ducted and beneficent system of quarantine. Any departure from 
this rule indicates a serious fault which should not be tolerated- 
The revenues derived from quarantine sources should never exceed the 
expenditure in quarantine maintenance, economically administered. 
The application of methods adequate to the speedy and thorough 
disinfection and cleansing of a vessel, the keeping of a station for in- 
fected vessels only, the general sustenance, in short, of a system of 
efficient maritime sanitation necessarily requires a considerable out- 
lay of money, which redounds to the immediate saving to the ship and 
to commerce, of very many times the amount so expended. 
A radical fault, and the one which inflicts upon commerce even 
the most perfect quarantine as a grievous obstruction, is chargeable 
to the action of the State in imposing the entire burden of main- 
tenance upon the shipping. 
If the Gulf Ports seriously desire to improve their commerce, 
they should indicate it by doing everything to invite, by removing 
every possible obstruction to shipping. With a high quarantine 
tariff and ruinous port charges, including enormous wharfage dues, 
vessels are kept away as effectually as an enemy could accomplish 
by a blockade. 
As a matter of the best paying economy, the action of the Province 
of Quebec in sustaining all the expenditures of quarantine mainte- 
nance, addresses itself as probably the wisest course in the long run. 
It is perfectly certain that, inasmuch as the State and its maritime 
port are, at least, one-half beneficiaries of commerce, these should bear, 
at least, one-half the entire expense of quarantine maintenance, and 
should therefore cut the charges down one-half. Every sentiment of equitable dealing and principle of progressive 
movement endorse this proposition; not to allow which, is simply a 
part of that narrow and short-sighted policy, which has consistently 
made the Gulf Ports their own most formidable enemies. 
Considered alone from the position of a State and of a sea port, 
and in [the line of a far seeing and sound economic policy, vessels 
should not be charged quarantine dues of any kind except for quaran- 
tine maintenance; these should be strictly proportioned to the servi- 
ces rendered, and one-half the expense should be borne by the State. 
The Quarantine and the Board of Health should be a State institu- 
tion appointed and controlled by the Governor of the State, and should 
not be local and therefore subject to local influence and interference. 
In conclusion, gentlemen, and as the logical answer to your inquiry ; 
“Can a state of public health be maintained at the Gulf Ports while 
constant intercourse is had with the Tropics V’ I point you to Louisi- 
ana and its great maritime port, New Orleans, for the reply—“ It 
can!!”