GREAT BRITAIN
England has never granted general ship-construction or navigation
bounties except in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Under Elizabeth
Parliament offered a bounty of five shillings per ton to every ship
above one hundred tons burden; and under James I that law was revived,
with the bounty applying only to vessels of two hundred tons or over.[A]
A policy of Government favoritism to shipping, however, began far back
in the dim ninth century with Alfred the Great. Under the inspiration of
this Saxon of many virtues, his people increased the number of English
merchant vessels and laid the foundation for the creation and
maintenance of a royal navy.[B] The Saxon Athelstan, Alfred's grandson,
whose attention to commerce was also marked, first made it a way to
honor, one of his laws enacting that a merchant or mariner successfully
accomplishing three voyages on the high seas with a ship and a cargo of
his own should be advanced to the dignity of a thane (baron).[C]
The first navigation law was enacted in the year 1381, fifth of Richard
II. This act, introduced "to awaken industry and increase the wealth of
the inhabitants and extend their influence,"[D] ordained that "none of
the King's liege people should from henceforth ship any merchandise in
going out or coming within the realm of England but only in the ships of
the King's liegeance, on penalty of forfeiture of vessel and cargo."[E]
This act of Richard II was the forerunner of the code of Cromwell, which
came to be called the "Great Maritime Charter of England," and the
fundamental principles of which held up to the second quarter of the
nineteenth century.
Under Charles I was enacted (1646) the first restrictive act with
relation to the commerce of the colonies, which ordained "That none in
any of the ports of the plantations of Virginia, Bermuda, Barbados, and
other places of America, shall suffer any ship or vessel to lade any
goods of the growth of the plantations and carry them to foreign ports
except in English bottoms," under forfeiture of certain exemptions from
customs.[F] It was followed up four years later (1650) under the
Commonwealth, by an act prohibiting "all foreign vessels whatever from
lading with the plantations of America without having obtained a
license."[G]
Cromwell's code, of which the act of 1381 was the germ, was established
the next year, 1651. Its primary object was to check the maritime
supremacy of Holland, then attaining dominance of the sea; and to strike
a decisive blow at her naval power. The ultimate aim was to secure to
England the whole carrying trade of the world, Europe only excepted.[H]
These were its chief provisions: that no goods or commodities whatever
of the growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America
should be imported either into England or Ireland, or any of the
plantations, except in English-built ships, owned by English subjects,
navigated by English masters, and of which three-fourths of the crew
were Englishmen; or in such ships as were the real property of the
people of the country or place in which the goods were produced, or from
which they could only be, or most usually were, exported.[I] This last
clause was the blow direct to Holland, for the Dutch had little native
products to export, and their ships were mainly employed in carrying the
produce of other countries to all foreign markets. It was answered with
war, the fierce naval war of 1652-1654, in which was exhibited that
famous spectacle of the at first victorious Dutch admiral, Van Tromp,
sweeping the English Channel with a broom at his masthead.
With the final defeat of the Dutch after hard fighting on both sides,
their virtual submission to the English Navigation Act, and their
admission of the English "sovereignty of the seas,"[J] by their consent
to "strike their flag to the shipping of the Commonwealth," England, in
her turn, became the chief sea power of the world.[K] During the ten
years of peace that followed, however, the Dutch despite the English
Navigation Act, succeeded in increasing their shipping, and regained
much of the carrying trade if not their lost leadership.[L]
Cromwell's act was confirmed by Charles II in 1660, and made the basis
of the code which then her statesmen exalted as "The Great Maritime
Charter of England."
Early in Charles II's reign also (in 1662) indirect bounties were
offered for the encouragement of the building of larger and more
efficient ships for service in time of war. These were grants of
one-tenth of the customs dues on the cargo, for two years, to every
vessel having two and one-half or three decks, and carrying thirty
guns.[M] Thirty years later (1694), in William and Mary's reign, the
time was extended to three years. Under William and Mary the granting of
bounties on naval stores was begun, and this system was continued till
George III's time.[M] With William and Mary's reign also began the
giving of indirect bounties to fishermen for the catching and curing of
fish. After the middle of the eighteenth century vessels engaged in the
fisheries were regularly subsidized, with the object of training sailors
for the merchant marine and the royal navy.[M]
While the fundamental rules of the "Maritime Charter" of 1660 remained
practically unimpaired, although in the succeeding years hundreds of
regulating statutes were passed, breaks were made in the restrictive
barriers of the code during the first third of the nineteenth century by
the adoption of the principle of maritime reciprocity.[N] In 1815 (July
3) a convention establishing a "reciprocal liberty of commerce," between
the "territories of Great Britain in Europe and those of the United
States," was signed in London.[O] In 1824-1826 reciprocity treaties were
entered into with various continental powers. In 1827 (August 6) the
treaty of 1815 with the United States was renewed. In 1830 a treaty for
regulating the commercial intercourse between the British colonial
possessions and the United States was executed.[P] Under these
conventions, repeatedly interrupted by British Orders in Council and by
Presidents' proclamations,[Q] the trading intercourse between both
countries was regulated till the abrogation of the code of 1660.
In 1844 an indirect move against the code was made, with the appointment
of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the working of
the reciprocal treaties and the condition of the mercantile marine of
the country.[R]
At this period the competition of the United States in the overseas
carrying trade of the world was hard pressing England. The Americans
were building the best wooden ships, superior in model and
seaworthiness, the fastest sailers. They were leading in shipbuilding.
Much of the British shipping trade was carried on in American-built
vessels. The splendid American clipper ships were almost monopolizing
the carrying trade between Great Britain and the United States. Most of
the shipping of the world was yet in wooden bottoms. Iron ships were in
service, but iron-shipbuilding was in its infancy.
The Parliamentary inquiry of 1844 was followed up in 1847 with a move
openly against the ancient code. Its principles as they then stood,
essentially as in 1660, despite the multitude of regulating statutes,
are thus enumerated:
1. Certain named articles of European produce could only be
imported into the United Kingdom for consumption in British
ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were the
produce, or of the country from which they were usually imported.
2. No produce of Asia, Africa, or America could be imported for
consumption into the United Kingdom from Europe in any ships; and
such produce could only be imported from any other place in
British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were
the produce and from which they were usually imported.
3. No goods could be carried coastwise from one part of the
United Kingdom to another in any but British ships.
4. No goods could be exported from the United Kingdom to any of
the British possessions in Asia, Africa, or America (with some
exceptions with regard to India) in any but British ships.
5. No goods could be carried from any one British possession in
Asia, Africa, or America, to another, nor from one part of such
possession to another part of the same, in any but British ships.
6. No goods could be imported into any British possession in
Asia, Africa, or America in any but British ships, or in ships of
the country of which the goods were the produce; provided, also,
that such ships brought the goods from that country.
7. No foreign ships were allowed to trade with any of the British
possessions unless they had been especially authorized to do so
by an Order in Council.
8. Powers were given to the Queen in Council which enabled her to
impose differential duties on the ships of any foreign country
which did the same with reference to British ships; and also to
place restrictions on importations from any foreign countries
which placed restrictions on British importations with such
countries.
Finally, in 1849, with the adoption of the commercial policy founded on
freedom of trade, came the repeal of the restrictive code, excepting
only the rule as to the British coasting trade; and in 1854 the
restrictions on that trade were removed, throwing it also open to the
participation of all nations.
Meanwhile the British ocean-mail subsidy system for steamship service,
instituted with the satisfactory application of steam to ocean
navigation, in the late eighteen-thirties, had become established: the
first contract for open ocean service, made in 1837, being for the
carriage of the Peninsular mails to Spain and Portugal. Although
successful ventures in transatlantic steam navigation had begun nearly a
score of years earlier, the practicability of the employment of steam in
this service was not fully tested to the satisfaction of the British
Admiralty till 1838.
In this, as in so many other innovations, Americans led the way. The
first steamer to cross the Atlantic was an American-built and
American-manned craft. This pioneer was the _Savannah_, built in New
York and bought for service between Savannah and Liverpool. She was a
full-rigged sailing-vessel, of 300 tons, with auxiliary steam power
furnished by an engine built in New Jersey. Her paddles were removable,
so fashioned that they could be folded fan-like when the ship was under
sail only.[S] She made the initial voyage, from Savannah to Liverpool,
in the Summer of 1819, and accomplished it in twenty-seven days,[T]
eighty hours of the time under steam. Afterwards she made a trip to St.
Petersburg, partly steaming and partly sailing, with calls at ports
along the way. Her gallant performance attracted wide attention, but
upon her return to America she finally brought up at New York, where her
machinery was removed and sold.
An English-built full-fledged steamer made the next venture, but not
until a decade after the _Savannah's_ feat. This was the _Curaçoa_, 350
tons, and one hundred horsepower, built for Hollanders, and sent out
from England in 1829. The third was by a Canada-built ship--the _Royal
William_, 500 or more tons, and eighty horsepower, with English-built
engines, launched at Three Rivers. She crossed from Quebec to Gravesend
in 1833. The next were the convincing tests that settled for the
Admiralty the question of transatlantic mail service by steamship
instead of sailing packet. These were the voyages out and back of the
_Sirius_ and the _Great Western_ in 1838.
The _Sirius_ had been in service between London and Cork. The _Great
Western_ was new, and was the first steamship to be specially
constructed for the trade between England and the United States. Both
were much larger than their three predecessors in steam transatlantic
ventures, and better equipped. The _Sirius_ started out with ninety-four
passengers, on the fourth of April, 1838, and reached New York on the
twenty-first, a passage of seventeen days. The _Great Western_, also
with a full complement of passengers, left three days after the
_Sirius_, sailing from Bristol, and swung into New York harbor on the
twenty-third, making her passage in two days' less time than her rival.
Both were hailed in New York with "immense acclamation." They sailed on
their homeward voyage in May, six days apart, and made the return
passage respectively in sixteen and fourteen days. The _Great Western_
on her second homeward voyage beat all records, making the run in twelve
days and fourteen hours, and "bringing with her the advices of the
fastest American sailing-ships which had started from New York long
before her."[U] This clinched the matter. The Admiralty now invited
tenders for the transatlantic mail service, by steam, between Liverpool,
Halifax, and New York.
The first call for tenders was made in October, 1838. The St. George's
Packet Company, owners of the _Sirius_, and the Great Western Steamship
Company, owners of the _Great Western_, put in bids, the former offering
a monthly service between Cork, Halifax, and New York for a yearly
subsidy of sixty-five thousand pounds; the latter, a monthly service
between Bristol, Halifax, and New York for forty-five thousand pounds a
year.
Neither offer was accepted for the reason, as was stated, that a
semimonthly service was desired.[V] Instead, private arrangements were
made with Samuel Cunard and associates for a carriage between Liverpool,
Halifax, Quebec, and Boston, twice a month, for a term of seven years,
the subsidy to be sixty thousand pounds annually, less four thousand
pounds for making only one voyage a month in the winter season.[W] The
contract required Mr. Cunard and his associates to furnish five ocean
steamships and two river steamers, the latter on the St. Lawrence.[V]
There were also definite restrictions as to turning their steamers over
to the Government for use in time of war. All were to be inspected by
Admiralty officers, and were to carry officers of the navy to care for
the mails.[X] The service was started with the _Britannia_, the first of
the four to be finished, sailing from Liverpool for Boston on July 4,
1840. Thus was begun the career of the celebrated Cunard Line. In 1841
the subsidy was increased to eighty thousand pounds, and the number of
steamers to five; and in 1846, a further increase brought the subsidy to
eighty-five thousand pounds.[Y]
The Admiralty's favoritism toward the Cunard associates aroused a
protest from the unsuccessful bidders for the subsidy, and at length the
Great Western Company, whose bid had been the lowest, caused a
Parliamentary inquiry to be made into the transaction. They complained
that a monopoly had been granted "to their injury and to that of other
owners of steamships engaged in the trade, and who were desirous of
entering it"; and they asked the inquiry on the broad grounds "that the
public were taxed for a service from which one company alone derived the
advantage, and which could be equally well done and at less expense if
mails were sent out by all steamers engaged in the trade, each receiving
a certain amount percentage on the letters they carried."[Z] Although
the fact was brought out in the testimony that the Great Western Company
had offered to perform the service on practically the same basis as the
Cunard associates, and that afterwards the Great Western had proposed to
do it at half the subsidy to the Cunarders, the investigating committee
sustained the Admiralty's action.[AA]
The Great Western Company overcame the advantage of the Cunarders in the
latter's high mail subsidy by increased enterprise and superior
management; and prospered. In 1843 they launched the _Great Britain_,
the largest and finest steamship up to that period built for overseas
service.[AB] She was, moreover, distinguished as the first liner to be
built of iron instead of wood, and to be propelled by the screw instead
of the paddle-wheel. In the latter innovation, however, she was not the
pioneer. Again the Americans were first in the application of the
auxiliary screw to ocean navigation,[AC] as they had been first in
despatching a steamer across the Atlantic.
The initial transatlantic subsidy to the Cunard Company was followed up
in 1840 and 1841 with contracts for steam mail-carriage to the West
Indies and South American ports.[AD] The first (1840) went to the Royal
Mail Steam Packet Company, for the West Indian service, the mail subsidy
fixed at two hundred and forty thousand pounds a year;[AE] the second
(1841), to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. The latter enterprise
was promoted by an American,[AF] after he had failed to obtain support
in his own country[AG] for a project to establish an American steamship
line to ports along the west coast of South America, a field in which
American sailing ships had long been preëminent.[AH]
Up to 1847 the British lines monopolized the transatlantic service. Then
the situation became enlivened by the advent of competing American
steamships subsidized by the United States Government, with high-paying
mail contracts. The first of these was the New York, Havre, and Bremen
line starting in 1847; the next, the celebrated Collins Line between New
York and Liverpool, underway in 1850. The competing vessels were
American-built, wooden side-wheelers; those of the Collins Line superior
in equipment and in passenger accommodations, and faster sailers, than
the British craft.[AI] To meet this competition the Cunard Company
increased their fleet while the Admiralty increased the subsidy. Four
new steamers were first added, in 1848, to run directly between
Liverpool and New York, and the postal subsidy was raised to one hundred
and forty-five thousand pounds a year for forty-four voyages--three
thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds a voyage.[AJ] The
competition began sharply with the regular running of the Collins
liners, in 1850. Meanwhile during this year and the next additional
contracts were given the Cunard Company for carrying the mails between
Halifax, New York, and Bermuda, on the North American side, in small
steamers, fitted with space for mounting an 18-pounder pivot-gun,
subsidy ten thousand six hundred pounds a year; and for a monthly mail
conveyance between Bermuda and St. Thomas, subsidy four thousand one
hundred pounds a year.[AK] These services united the West Indies with
the United States and Canada.[AK]
In 1851 John Inman entered the trade with his "Inman Line" of
transatlantic screw steamers, which were to carry general cargo and
emigrant passengers, then a steadily increasing business, and to be
independent in all respects of either the Admiralty or the
Post-Office.[AL] The unsubsidized line prospered. The next year (1852)
the Cunard Company increased their liners' horsepower, and the Admiralty
again increased their subsidy. The contract, now made to run for ten
years, provided a subsidy of one hundred and seventy-three thousand
three hundred and forty pounds per fifty-two round trips a year. The
Americans were pressing them closer. Now freight rates were cut, and the
British premier is quoted as advising the Cunard Company to run without
freight if necessary to "beat off the American line."[AM] The increasing
subsidies occasioned a Parliamentary investigation. The committee,
evidently impressed by the gravity of the American competition, reported
that "the cost of the North American service was not excessive," but
they advised that all contracts thereafter "be let at public
bidding."[AN] This recommendation was not heeded. In 1857, upon the plea
that the Americans were about to build larger and more powerful liners,
the Cunard Company asked a five years' extension of the contract of
1852. The extension was promptly granted. At the same time they were
awarded an additional subsidy of three thousand pounds for a monthly
mail service between New York and Nassau in the Bahamas.[AO] The next
year (1858) after suffering crushing disasters in the loss of two of
their steamers, and the withdrawal of their subsidy, the Collins Company
failed, and their line was abandoned.[AP] So this competition ended.
Meanwhile complaints of the Admiralty's partiality in the allotment of
the contracts had been renewed more vigorously, with wider criticism of
grants for mail carriage largely in excess of the postage received; and
in 1859-60 another Parliamentary investigation was made. The ultimate
result of this inquiry was a radical change in the system. The
management of the ocean mail-service was taken from the Admiralty and
placed wholly in the hands of the Post-Office Department; and at the
expiration of the Cunard Company's extended contract, the service was
thrown open to public competition, as the Parliamentary committee of
1846 had advised.
Bids were now received from the Cunard, the Inman, the North German
Lloyd, and other lines. The Inman Company had previously offered to
perform the service, and had done so for sea-postage only.[AQ] Contracts
were finally concluded with the three named. The contract with the Inman
Line was for a fortnightly Halifax service, for seven hundred and fifty
pounds the round trip, nineteen thousand five hundred pounds a year, and
a weekly New York service for sea-postage. That with the Cunard Line was
for a weekly service to New York at a fixed subsidy of eighty thousand
pounds. That with the North German Lloyd was for a weekly service, at
the sea-postage. These contracts were to run for a year only. The
Cunard's subsidy, although considerably less than half the amount that
the company had received the previous ten years, showed a loss to the
Government, at sea-postage rates, of forty-four thousand one hundred and
ninety-six pounds, since the amount actually earned at sea-postage
rates was twenty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six pounds.[AR]
When advertisements for tenders were next issued, it was found that the
Cunard and Inman companies had formed a "community of interests," with
an agreement not to underbid each other. They asked a ten years'
contract on the basis of fifty thousand pounds fixed subsidy for a
weekly service. Instead, they were awarded seven years' contracts: the
Cunard for a semi-weekly service, seventy thousand pounds subsidy; the
Inman, for a weekly service, thirty-five thousand pounds subsidy.[AR] At
the same time contracts were made with the North German Lloyd and the
Hamburg-American lines for a weekly service for the sea-postage.
The Cunard and Inman grants were sharply criticised, and a Parliamentary
committee was appointed to investigate them. The committee's report
sustained the critics. It observed that "the payments to be made when
compared with those made by the American Post Office for the homeward
mails are widely different, inasmuch as the American Post Office has
hitherto paid only for actual services rendered at about half the rate
of the British Post Office when paying by the quantity of letters
carried." The committee recommended that these contracts be disapproved,
and that the system of fixed subsidies be abolished. "Under all
circumstances," they concluded, "we are of the opinion that, considering
the already large and continually increasing means of communication with
the United States, there is no longer any necessity for fixed subsidies
for a term of years in the case of this service."[AS] This
recommendation, however, was not accepted, and the contracts were duly
ratified.
The report of this Parliamentary committee is significant in the
evidence it indirectly affords, confirming the declaration of
1853,[AT]--that the postal subsidies were not as assumed, payments
solely for services rendered, but in fact were concealed bounties.
In 1871-72, when a renewed effort was made to establish an American
line of American-built ships,[AU] the British subsidies were again
increased. Then, also, was instituted by the Admiralty the naval
subvention system--the payment of annual retainers to certain classes of
merchant steamers, the largest and swiftest, in readiness for quick
conversion into auxiliary naval ships in case of war, and to preclude
their becoming available for the service of any power inimical to
British interests.
At the expiration of the Cunard and Inman seven years' contracts the
postmaster-general applied the principle of payment according to weight
throughout for the carriage of the North American mails. But preference
was given to British ships, these receiving higher rates per pound than
the foreign. In 1887 an arrangement was entered into by which the Cunard
and Oceanic lines were to carry all mails except specially directed
letters, and the pay was reduced.[AV] This method of payment continued
till 1903.
Then another sharp change was made in the subsidy system to meet
another, and most threatening American move. In 1902 was formed by
certain American steamship men, through the assistance of J. Pierpont
Morgan, the "International Mercantile Marine Company," in popular
parlance, the "Morgan Steamship Merger," a "combine" of a large
proportion of the transatlantic steam lines.[AW] Upon this, in response
to a popular clamor, subsidy, and in a large dose, was openly granted to
sustain British supremacy in overseas steam-shipping. To keep the Cunard
Line out of the American merger, and hold it absolutely under British
control and British capitalization, and, furthermore, to aid the company
immediately to build ships capable of equalling if not surpassing the
highest type of ocean liners that had to that time been produced (the
highest type then being German-built steamers operating under the German
flag), the Cunard Company were resubsidized with a special fixed subsidy
of three-quarters of a million dollars a year, instead of the Admiralty
subvention of about seventy-five thousand dollars, and in addition to
their regular mail pay, the subsidy to run for a period of twenty years
after the completion of the second of two high-grade, high-speed ocean
"greyhounds" called for for the Atlantic trade. The Government were to
lend the money for the construction of the two new ships at the rate of
2-3/4 per cent per annum, the company to repay the loan by annual
payments extending over twenty years. The company on their part pledged
themselves, until the expiry of the agreement, to remain a purely
British undertaking, the management, the stock of the corporation, and
their ships, to be in the hands of or held by British subjects only.
They were to hold the whole of their fleet, including the two new
vessels, and all others to be built, at the disposal of the Government,
the latter being at liberty to charter or purchase any or all at agreed
rates. They were not to raise freights unduly nor to give any
preferential rates to foreigners.[AX] The subsidy is equivalent to about
twenty thousand dollars for an outward voyage of three thousand miles.
* * * * *
Of the British colonies, Canada grants mail and steamship subsidies, and
fisheries bounties. In 1909-10 the Dominion's expenditures in mail and
steamship subsidies amounted to a total equivalent to $1,736,372. The
amount appropriated for 1910-11 increased to $2,054,200; while the
estimates for 1911-12 reached a total of $2,006,206. In these estimates
the larger items were: for service between Canada and Great Britain;
Australia by the Pacific; Canadian Atlantic ports and Australia and New
Zealand; South Africa; Mexico by the Atlantic, and by the Pacific; West
Indies and South America; China and Japan; Canada and France.[AY] The
home Government pays the same amount as Canada toward maintaining the
China and Japan, and British West Indies services.[AZ] The fisheries
bounties amounted to one hundred and sixty thousand dollars in 1909.[BA]
* * * * *
The grand total of subsidies and subventions paid by Great Britain and
all her colonies in 1911 approximate ten million dollars annually. The
subsidies and mail pay of the Imperial Government amounted, in round
numbers, to four million dollars, of which, in 1910, the Cunard Company
received seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand dollars.[BB] Besides the
Admiralty subventions, retainer bounties are paid to merchant seamen and
fishermen of the Royal Naval Reserve.
Since the establishment of steam in regular ocean navigation, and the
substitution of iron for wooden ships, England has maintained her
leadership among the maritime nations. The total tonnage of the United
Kingdom and her colonies, steam and sailing ships, in 1910-11, stood at
19,012,294 tons.[BC] nearly four fold that of any other nation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: Royal Meeker, "History of Ship Subsidies."]
[Footnote B: John E. Green, "Short History of the English People."]
[Footnote C: W.H. Lindsay, "History of Merchant Shipping."]
[Footnote D: Lindsay.]
[Footnote E: David A. Wells, "Our Merchant Marine," p. 96.]
[Footnote F: John Lewis Ricardo, "The Anatomy of the Navigation Laws,"
p. 111.]
[Footnote G: Lindsay, vol. III.]
[Footnote H: Lindsay, "Our Navigation Laws"; also his History.]
[Footnote I: Ricardo; also Lindsay in other words.]
[Footnote J: Meaning the waters between Great Britain and the
continent.]
[Footnote K: Green, p. 593.]
[Footnote L: Ricardo, p. 26.]
[Footnote M: Meeker.]
[Footnote N: W.W. Bates, "American Marine," pp. 57-59.]
[Footnote O: John Macgregor, "Commercial Tariffs."]
[Footnote P: Lindsay, vol. III, p. 65.]
[Footnote Q: Macgregor.]
[Footnote R: Lindsay, vol. III, p. 69; also pp. 53-54 and 107.]
[Footnote S: Rear-Admiral George H. Preble, "Chronological History of
Steam Navigation."]
[Footnote T: Preble. Lindsay says thirty-seven.]
[Footnote U: Preble, p. 137; also Bates, p. 185.]
[Footnote V: Meeker.]
[Footnote W: Parliamentary papers 1839, vol. XLVI, no. 566, as to the
private contract.]
[Footnote X: Lindsay, vol. IV.]
[Footnote Y: Meeker; also Parl. papers 1849, vol. XII, no. 571.]
[Footnote Z: Lindsay, vol. X; also Parl. papers, report H. of C., Aug.,
1840.]
[Footnote AA: Report of Select Com. (1846) Parl. papers, vol. XV, no.
565, p. 3.]
[Footnote AB: Lindsay, vol. IV.]
[Footnote AC: The _Princeton_, sloop-of-war fitted with the Ericsson
screw, launched the same year.]
[Footnote AD: Lindsay, vol. IV, p. 198, _note_.]
[Footnote AE: John R. Spears, "The Story of the American Merchant
Marine," pp. 254-255.]
[Footnote AF: William Wheelwright, of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
sometime American consul at Guayaquil.]
[Footnote AG: Winthrop L. Marvin, "The American Merchant Marine," p.
231; also Preble; and Lindsay, vol. IV, pp. 316-330.]
[Footnote AH: Marvin, p. 231.]
[Footnote AI: See p. 76, _post_.]
[Footnote AJ: Meeker.]
[Footnote AK: Lindsay, vol. IV, p. 198, _note_.]
[Footnote AL: Wells, p. 148.]
[Footnote AM: Bates, p. 87; also p. 130.]
[Footnote AN: Meeker.]
[Footnote AO: Meeker.]
[Footnote AP: See p. 77, _post_.]
[Footnote AQ: Meeker.]
[Footnote AR: Meeker.]
[Footnote AS: Parl. papers, 1867-68, 1868-69.]
[Footnote AT: See p. 20, _ante_.]
[Footnote AU: The American Steamship Co. of Phila., with 4 iron steamers
built on the Delaware--the _Pennsylvania_, _Ohio_, _Indiana_, and
_Illinois_.]
[Footnote AV: Meeker.]
[Footnote AW: Ultimately embracing the American, Red Star, White Star,
Atlantic Transport, and Dominion Lines.]
[Footnote AX: For details of this contract see report of (U.S.)
commissioner of navigation for 1903, pp. 48-52, and 224-268. The two
steamships called for were the _Lusitania_, 31,550 gross tons, launched
June 7, 1906; and the _Mauretania_, 31,937 gross tons, launched Sept.
19, 1906, both quadruple screw turbines, about 70,000 horsepower; the
largest, fastest, and completest steamers afloat till the production in
1911 of the _Olympic_, 45,324 gross tons, of the International
Mercantile Marine Co.'s White Star Line.]
[Footnote AY: U.S. consul, Charlottetown, P.E.I. in daily Con. Repts.
(Jan. 20) 1911, no. 16.]
[Footnote AZ: Consul General Small, Halifax, in Con. Repts. (Dec.) 1905,
no. 303.]
[Footnote BA: The American Year Book, 1911.]
[Footnote BB: American Year Book, 1911.]
[Footnote BC: Lloyd's Register, 1910-11.]