Salvors and the Government by Pat Clyne

Since the advent of S.C.U.B.A. man has taken his natural curiosity below the waters depths to discover not only a far ranging array of new plant and animal life but also a legacy of man’s evolutionary travels through time. Long before he traveled under the water, man traveled over it, but sometimes those travels were cut short because of some horrendous twist of fate. The vehicle that was used as transport was lost, with it’s passengers and cargo to the depths of the ocean. Here it remained, and although it lay undisturbed by human hands, the corrosive action of the sea began to take it’s toll on most of the wood and metals that were onboard.

Centuries later, a scuba diver swims by and recognizes an anchor or a cannon. He starts probing through whatever might be left of the remains and comes across a gold coin. “Sunken Treasure” becomes the cry heard up and down the coastline. More divers join in, companies are formed and business’s are established. People want to own “Sunken Treasure.” There is now supply and demand. A new market where citizens can reap the reward through a Free Enterprise System. Right? Well maybe not. We’re forgetting the checks and balances our government has built into it to protect us from good things as well as the bad, it’s their obligation they say. Justice can be blind, when it wants to be.

If everyone were perfect and mistakes were as rare as bureaucrats finding a solution to problems, than maybe we could all agree that finding, recovering, and conserving our past is an honorable profession that should not be denied honorable people solely because they do not work for the government or are supplied funding by the government. Tax money extorted, excuse me- collected from citizens should be used for the benefit of those citizens, and not to take away their legitimate right to a Free Enterprise System. When a government says it is taking away some of your rights so they can better protect you, red flags should be going up all around you like fireworks on the 4th of July. And isn’t Independence from repressive government the reason we celebrate that day to begin with?

The private sector salvage community has come a long way since that first coin was found under the sea. And so has government regulations to suppress it. They say that only through government supervision or stewardship can our cultural resources be saved. I ask you, can anyone list one government bureaucracy that has ever been formed that solved the problem it was created to solve and then been dismantled? Can anyone name just one government bureaucracy that hasn’t grown by leaps and bounds feeding at the public trough? Their accomplishments are voluminous however, they have created thousands and thousands of new rules and regulations for all of us to abide by. They’ve become quite proficient at it, they have had a lot of practice in dismantling our freedoms over the years.

International Bureaucracy now looms on the doorstep of the professional Salvor in the form of a new UNESCO push to extend a “Cultural Heritage Zone” 200 miles from our shoreline. If the World buys into this at the next Paris Summit, it may very well pave the way for the eradication of the Private Sector Salvage Community. The government’s argument has always been the same. The Salvors destroy or sell off our heritage. But a provision in the International “Law of the Sea” that has been followed since the beginning of salvage, and that UNESCO is trying to kill, is that materials that are saved from the perils of the sea should be put back into the stream of commerce. This is exactly what the Salvors do. We put it back into the hands of the people who wish to own a piece of History. And this is with no cost to the taxpayer. The government can’t and won’t allow that. When it is left up to the government, you pay for it, but they get it.

Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric that they are doing it for the people, we are the people- people. Let your voice be heard and support the Salvors, write to UNESCO and our Dept. of State (address below). Tell them that as citizens of this country we wish to pursue the practice of the Free Enterprise System for one simple reason- we are all still “Americans.”