THE GREATNESS AND THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE
The year 1851 is memorable in our maritime annals, because at that time
the United States was at the zenith of her power upon the ocean, and had
completely outstripped her rival Great Britain in the efficiency and
extent of her oversea carrying trade. It is true that the total tonnage
of merchant shipping owned in the United States in this year, including
steam, was only 3,718,640 tons, against 4,332,085 owned by the British
Empire with all its dependencies; but these figures, like many
statistics of this nature, are somewhat misleading. The primary reason
for the existence of a merchant ship is, of course, her ability to pay
her way and earn money for her owners. When a ship ceases to be able to
do this, the sooner she is converted into a hulk or broken up, the
better. So the true measure of a nation’s merchant marine is its earning
capacity, not merely the number or tonnage of its ships; and judged by
this standard, the merchant marine of the United States was at this time
far in advance of the merchant shipping of the whole British Empire.
In the first place, the merchant ships of the British Empire were of
such massive construction that they could not carry at the very most
more than ninety per cent. of the cargo carried by ships of similar
tonnage owned in the United States; then in the matter of speed, an
American merchantman would make five voyages while a British ship was
making four of equal length; and as to freights, the American ships had
the splendid rates to San Francisco all to themselves, while from China
to England the rates of freight were quite double in their favor, as
compared with British ships.
If any one with a liking for statistics will apply these facts to the
foregoing figures, the seeming advantage of tonnage possessed by the
British Empire will disappear and it will be found that the merchant
marine of the United States at that time held a commanding position in
the maritime carrying trade of the world. Furthermore, the ship-builders
of this country still excelled in every branch of merchant marine
architecture.
On the North Atlantic in 1851, the American Collins Line steamships
_Arctic_, _Atlantic_, _Baltic_, and _Pacific_ were competing
successfully with the British Cunarders _Niagara_, _Canada_, _Asia_, and
_Africa_: the _Baltic_ holding the speed record for both the eastern and
the western passages between New York and Liverpool; while the New York,
Philadelphia, and Boston packet ships still held their own. No sailing
ships of other nationalities could compete with them, and though hard
pressed by steamships of the various lines, they still retained their
popularity with passengers and shipping merchants. American ships from
home ports were profitably engaged in the India, China, African, and
South American trades; the New Bedford and Nantucket whaling ships were
to be found upon every sea; the Mississippi, Hudson River, and Long
Island Sound steamboats were the most perfect types of this period for
inland navigation; and the Massachusetts fishing schooners, the North
River sloops, and the New York pilot-boats were far famed for speed and
beauty; while the American clippers were now known and admired
throughout the maritime world.
It was in this year also that the Royal Yacht Squadron presented a cup
to be sailed for at Cowes by yachts belonging to the yacht clubs of all
nations, which, as every one knows, was won by the _America_,
representing the New York Yacht Club.
“To teach the Mistress of the Sea
What beam and mast and sail should be,
To teach her how to walk the wave
With graceful step, is such a lore
As never had been taught before;
Dumb are the wise, aghast the brave.”[14]
Surely De Tocqueville was right when he said: “Nations, as well as men,
almost always betray the most prominent features of their future destiny
in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardor with which the
Anglo-Americans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which
befriend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain
from believing that they will one day become the first maritime power
of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to
conquer the world.”[15]
This day had then come. The victory of the _America_ off the Isle of
Wight may be likened to the gilded weathercock at the top of some lofty
spire, being highly decorative and at the same time showing the
direction of the wind. At that time the commercial greatness of the
United States rested upon the splendid qualities shown by her sailing
ships and their captains upon the ocean. And after all the only really
rational sovereignty of the seas that exists, or has ever existed, is
maintained by the merchant marine, whose ships and seamen contribute not
only to the welfare and happiness of mankind, but also to the wealth of
the nations under whose flags they sail.
In those early days, as the flaming posters in the downtown streets of
New York used to announce, it was “Sail versus Steam” and the packet
ships justified their claim more than once by beating a steamship from
port to port. When, as not infrequently happened, a packet ship running
before a strong westerly gale in mid-ocean overhauled a wallowing
side-wheel steamer bound the same way, the joyous shouts and derisive
yells of the steerage passengers on board the packet, as she ranged
alongside and swept past the “tea-kettle,” were good for the ears of
sailormen to hear. In those days no sailors liked steamships, not even
those who went to sea in them. If a packet captain sighted a steamer
ahead going the same way, he usually steered for her and passed to
windward as close as possible, in order that the dramatic effect of the
exploit might not be lost upon the passengers of either vessel.
The Atlantic steamship lines with which the packet ships had to compete,
the Cunard, Collins, Havre, Bremen, and Vanderbilt lines, ran only
wooden side-wheel steamers; but when the Inman Line was founded in 1850,
and began to run iron screw steamers between Liverpool and Philadelphia,
the Atlantic packet ships began to lose their trade. Indeed, from 1840,
when the Cunard Line was established, until the Inman Line began to run
their fast iron screw steamships to New York in 1857, the rivalry
between sail and steam was keen and spirited. During these years the
Atlantic mail steamships carried almost as much canvas as sailing
vessels, and they continued to do so for many years. Most of the
Cunarders were barque-rigged, and the famous _Russia_ of that line
carried topmast and topgallant studdingsails. The Allan liners were also
barque-rigged, and the Inman steamships were full ship-rigged, while the
White Star liners were ship-rigged with a jiggermast. It was not until
1889, when the White Star Line brought out the _Majestic_ and the
_Teutonic_ with twin screws, pole masts, and no canvas, that the
Atlantic Ocean began to be navigated by vessels propelled entirely by
steam; so that the complete transition from sail to steam required very
nearly half a century.
It cannot be said that steam competition had any direct effect upon the
California clippers, as it is only of late years that there has been
direct communication by sea between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and
the Pacific Mail Company, after once getting its steamers round into the
Pacific, had always carried passengers, the mails, and specie with
transshipment at Panama. The demand for the California clippers ceased
when rapid transportation of cargoes round Cape Horn became no longer
necessary.
Besides the competition between sail and steam, there was also going on
for many years, as has already been suggested, the attempt to substitute
iron for wood in the construction of vessels, and screw propellers for
paddle-wheels as a means of propulsion by steam. In both branches of
this transition, which were parallel but not necessarily connected,
Great Britain took the lead, and she has rightfully reaped the benefit.
How gradually the change came about will be seen from the following
facts and figures: The first iron sailing ship was the _Vulcan_, built
on the Clyde in 1818, and in the following year the first sailing vessel
with an auxiliary engine crossed the Atlantic. This was the _Savannah_,
a wooden ship of 350 tons, with portable paddles and an engine and
boiler on deck. She was built at New York. The first vessel to cross the
Atlantic using steam-power during the entire voyage was the _Royal
William_, which was taken from Quebec to London in 1833; and in 1838 the
first steamers of British build, the _Great Western_ and the _Sirius_,
made the westward passage. The first steamer constructed of iron was the
_Aaron Manby_, a small paddle-wheel vessel about 50 feet long, built at
Horsley, England, in 1821; and the first screw steamer of any importance
was the _Archimedes_, an iron vessel of 237 tons, built in England in
1839. The _Great Britain_, built at Bristol, England, in 1843, was the
first screw, as well as the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic,
but it was not until 1850, when the Inman liner _City of Glasgow_ began
to run regularly between Liverpool and Philadelphia, that iron screw
steamers took a recognized place upon the ocean.
It is to be noticed how closely these last dates correspond with those
of the clipper ship era, which opened with the advent of the _Rainbow_
in 1843, and was brought to its greatest brilliancy through the
discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1848 and 1851. At this
time each nation was devoting its best talents to developing the
material that lay nearest at hand; and while the American wooden-built
type was earlier brought to perfection, its possibilities were more
limited by natural causes. Greater economy, durability, and regularity
of speed on the part of the iron screw steamer were the qualities that
finally drove from the seas the far more picturesque and beautiful
wooden sailing ship.
The supremacy held by the merchant marine of the United States in 1851
was maintained until about 1856, and during this period American ships
continued to be built, bought, and chartered by British ship-owners; but
after the great financial depression which affected both countries from
1857 to 1859, British ship-owners no longer needed American-built
ships, for in Great Britain iron had by this time superseded wood in the
construction of large vessels. Thus the advantage to the United States
of having an abundant supply of timber was taken away, while the
advantage of Free Trade, with low cost of living, was on the side of
England. Moreover, the spirit of enterprise, which had been growing in
Great Britain during the years of free competition in the carrying trade
since 1849, was having its effect.
Following the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the Merchant Shipping Act
of 1854, a wise and far-seeing measure, completed the foundation upon
which the merchant marine of Great Britain has been developed. This act
of Parliament contains 548 clauses, dealing with all questions which
relate to British merchant ships and seamen, including tonnage. The
ship-builders of Great Britain had been much hampered by the old tonnage
laws and were glad to see them abolished.[16] The new tonnage rules,
which are still in force, were based upon the actual cubic capacity of
the hull, the unit of 100 cubic feet being one ton register, so that a
vessel measuring 100,000 cubic feet internal capacity registers 1000
tons, and is able to carry 2000 tons at 50 cubic feet per ton. This new
system of measurement encouraged the application of scientific knowledge
to the design of vessels, and, as we shall see, helped somewhat to
prolong the clipper ship era in England, when it was practically dead in
the United States.
It is true that during our Civil War American ships were still sold in
England, but this was rather because their owners had no profitable use
for them at home than from any lack of British iron vessels. Since that
period, the decline of American shipping, for reasons that should be
well understood, has been constant.
I refer to the Navigation Laws and Protective Tariff of the United
States. The former, first enacted in 1792 and revised and added to since
that time only in unimportant details, have long out-lived the
usefulness they may once have possessed, and completely fail to meet the
requirements of the changes in ocean navigation that have taken place
during the period of more than a century that has since elapsed. As is
well known, they prohibit an American citizen from owning a
foreign-built merchant ship. Meanwhile the Protective Tariff so
increases the cost of living and with it the cost of the labor and
materials that go into the construction of a modern ship, that the
American ship-builder cannot produce a steel or iron vessel at anything
like a cost that will enable her to compete successfully with a ship of
the same class constructed in a European shipyard. Were it not for this
hindrance, the immense natural advantages of such broad, deep waters as
those of the Delaware and Chesapeake, where the finest coal and iron ore
are within easy transportation, and the abundant food supplies of the
neighboring garden States and of the West which are easily accessible,
would make them ideal spots for the construction of ships. So it will be
seen that the Navigation Laws and Protective Tariff are the mill-stones
between which the American ship-owner and ship-builder at present find
themselves ground with an ever-receding prospect of escape from this
cunningly devised dilemma. Meanwhile, the ensign of the United States no
longer contributes in any marked degree to the gayety of foreign
seaports; whereas, Great Britain, with inferior coal and iron ore,
compelled to import the food and clothing material for her shipwrights
from distant lands, and with certainly no keener intelligence nor
greater energy among her ship-owners and builders, but guided by the
enlightened policy of Free Trade, sends her endless procession of
merchant ships, both sail and steam, to every seaport upon the globe.