transport cargo at less than $115; one of 5,000 tons would transport
it at $52; one of 10,000 tons would transport it at $33 per ton; and
one of 20,000 tons burthen, as for instance the "Leviathan," would
transport it at $24 per ton. And while none of the three first named
sizes of vessels would transport it 12,500 miles, the one of 20,000
tons, running 12 miles per hour, would transport it at $80 per ton;
and running 14 miles per hours, at $430 per ton. Two things must,
however, not be forgotten in this; that the ship to do this must
always run entirely full and have no waste room; and that these prices
are comparisons between different steamers, and not with sailing
vessels, which, running much more slowly and with but little expense,
transport the freight far more cheaply.
The following table will set forth very clearly in a summary view, the
Time, Horse-power, Coal, and Cargo for a steamer of good average
quality running on passages of 1,000 miles, 2,000 miles, and 3,000
miles, and at a speed varying from 6 to 18 miles per hour. It will be
observed that a steamer of 3,000 tons can not take power and coal
enough to run on a 2,000 miles passage above 17 knots per hour, and
that one of 3,000 tons also can not run on a 3,000 miles passage at a
speed above 16 knots per hour. Observe the small quantity of cargo and
the large quantity of coal for a steamer of 3,000 tons on a 3,000
miles passage at 16 miles per hour.
COAL AND CARGO TABLE: No. IV.
_Calculated for the mean Displacement of 3,000 Tons._
KEY:
A: SPEED--PER HOUR.
B: HORSE-POWER.
C: WEIGHT OF HULL AND ENGINES.
D: PASSAGE 1,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Time.
E: PASSAGE 1,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Coal.
F: PASSAGE 1,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Cargo.
G: PASSAGE 2,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Time.
H: PASSAGE 2,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Coal.
I: PASSAGE 2,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Cargo.
J: PASSAGE 3,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Time.
K: PASSAGE 3,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Coal.
L: PASSAGE 3,000 NAUTICAL MILES. Cargo.
-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L
N. M.|H. P.|TONS.|D. H.|TONS|TONS|D. H.|TONS|TONS|D. H.|TONS|TONS
-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----
6| 52| 1252| 6.23| 72|1711|13.21| 144|1675|20.20| 216|1639
7| 83| 1283| 5.23| 98|1667|11.22| 197|1617|17.21| 296|1568
8| 123| 1323| 5. 5| 128|1612|10.10| 256|1548|15.15| 384|1484
| | | | | | | | | | |
9| 175| 1375| 4.15| 162|1543| 9. 6| 324|1462|13.21| 486|1381
10| 241| 1441| 4. 4| 200|1458| 8. 8| 401|1358|12.12| 602|1257
11| 320| 1520| 3.19| 242|1358| 7.14| 484|1237|11. 9| 727|1116
| | | | | | | | | | |
12| 416| 1616| 3.11| 288|1239| 6.23| 577|1095|10.10| 866| 950
13| 529| 1729| 3. 5| 339|1100| 6.10| 678| 931| 9.15|1017| 761
14| 661| 1861| 2.23| 393| 942| 5.23| 786| 745| 8.22|1180| 548
| | | | | | | | | | |
15| 813| 2013| 2.19| 451| 761| 5.13| 903| 535| 8. 8|1355| 309
16| 987| 2187| 2.14| 514| 555| 5. 5|1028| 298| 7.19|1542| 41
17| 1183| 2383| 2.11| 580| 327| 4.22|1160| 37| | |
| | | | | | | | | | |
18| 1405| 2605| 2. 8| 650| 69| | | | | |
19| 1652| 2852| | | | | | | | |
20| 1927| 3127| | | | | | | | |
-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----+-----+----+----
I will close this long chapter, in which I have endeavored to give a
clear, comprehensible, and faithful idea of the cost of running ocean
mail, freight, and passenger steamers, by an extract from that very
able and faithful work, "Steamship Capability." As a summing up of the
various laws and facts concerning the consumption of fuel, weight and
power of engines, speed of ships, and their capacity to do business,
Mr. Atherton says, page 55: "Now suppose, for example, that the
passage be 1,000 miles, and that, for brevity, we confine our remarks
to the engine department only; which, indeed, will be the department
of expense, chiefly affected by variations in the rate of speed. It
appears that the vessel of 5,000 tons' mean displacement, if fitted
to run at the speed of EIGHT NAUTICAL MILES per hour, will require 172
H.P., and a cargo of 2,738 tons will be conveyed 1,000 miles in five
days five hours; being equivalent to one day's employment of 33/100
H.P. _per ton_ of goods.
"If fitted to run at TEN NAUTICAL MILES an hour, the vessel will
require 336 H.P., the cargo will be reduced to 2,524 tons, and the
time to four days four hours; being equivalent to one day's employment
of 55/100 H.P. _per ton_ of goods nearly.
"If fitted to run at TWELVE NAUTICAL MILES an hour, the vessel will
require 581 H.P., the cargo will be reduced to 2,217 tons, and the
time to three days eleven hours; being equivalent to one day's
employment of 91/100 H.P. _per ton_ of goods.
"If fitted to run at FOURTEEN MILES an hour, the vessel will require
923 H.P., the cargo will be reduced to 1,802 tons, and the time to two
days twenty-three hours; being equivalent to one day's employment of
1-52/100 H.P. _per ton_ of goods.
"If fitted to run at SIXTEEN MILES per hour, the vessel will require
1,377 H.P., the cargo will be reduced to 1,264 tons, and the time to
two days fourteen hours; being equivalent to one day's employment of
2-86/100 H.P. _per ton_ of goods.
"If fitted to run at EIGHTEEN MILES per hour, the vessel will require
1,961 H.P., the cargo will be reduced to 585 tons, and the time to two
days eight hours; being equivalent to one day's employment of 7-75/100
H.P., _per ton_ of goods.
"And if fitted to run at TWENTY MILES per hour, there will be no
displacement available for mercantile cargo.
"Assuming, now, that the COST per ton of goods will be in proportion
to the amount of power and tonnage employed to do the work, it appears
that the cost _per ton of goods_ of performing this passage of 1,000
miles, at the respective speeds of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 miles,
will be proportional to the numbers--33/100, 55/100, 91/100, 1-52/100,
2-86/100, and 7-75/100, which are proportional to the numbers 33, 55,
91, 152, 286, and 775, or nearly as 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 23.
"Hence it appears, that in the case of the ONE THOUSAND MILES passage
above referred to, the cost of freight _per ton of goods_ at TEN MILES
per hour, will require to be nearly the _double_ of the rate at EIGHT
MILES per hour.
"The cost per ton at TWELVE MILES per hour will require to be _three
times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at FOURTEEN MILES per hour will require to be _five
times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at SIXTEEN MILES per hour will require to be _nine
times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at EIGHTEEN MILES per hour will require to be
_twenty-three times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"And at TWENTY MILES per hour there will be _no displacement_
available for mercantile cargo.
"By applying the same process of calculation to a ship of 5,000 tons'
mean displacement, making a passage of THREE THOUSAND MILES, we shall
find that, at TEN MILES an hour, the cost of freight per ton will
require to be double the rate of freight at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at TWELVE MILES will require to be three times the
rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at FOURTEEN MILES will require to be six times the
rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at SIXTEEN MILES will require to be twenty times the
rate at EIGHT MILES.
"And at EIGHTEEN MILES per hour there will be _no displacement_
available for mercantile cargo.
"Finally, by applying the same process of calculation to a ship of
5,000 tons' mean displacement on a passage of 6,000 miles, it will be
found that the cost of freight per ton at TEN MILES per hour will
require to be _double_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at TWELVE MILES per hour will require to be about
_five times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"The cost per ton at FOURTEEN MILES per hour will be about _sixteen
times_ the rate at EIGHT MILES.
"And at SIXTEEN MILES per hour there will be _no displacement_
available for mercantile cargo.
"Hence, it appears, that for voyages of 1,000 miles and upwards,
without re-coaling, the speed of ten nautical miles per hour would
involve about _double_ the cost _per ton_ of eight miles, and may,
therefore, be regarded as the extreme limit that can be generally
entertained for the mercantile purpose of goods' conveyance; and that
the attainment on long passages of a higher rate of speed than ten
miles (though admissibly practicable) would involve obligations
altogether of an exceptional character, such as the special service of
dispatches, mails, passengers, specie, and the most valuable
description of goods can only meet."
SECTION V.
OCEAN MAIL STEAMERS CAN NOT LIVE ON THEIR OWN RECEIPTS.
INCREASE OF BRITISH MAIL SERVICE: LAST NEW LINE AT $925,000 PER
YEAR: THE SYSTEM NOT BECOMING SELF-SUPPORTING: CONTRACT RENEWALS
AT SAME OR HIGHER PRICES: PRICE OF FUEL AND WAGES INCREASED FASTER
THAN ENGINE IMPROVEMENTS: LARGE SHIPS RUN PROPORTIONALLY CHEAPER
THAN SMALL: AN EXAMPLE, WITH THE FIGURES: THE STEAMER "LEVIATHAN,"
27,000 TONS: STEAMERS OF THIS CLASS WILL NOT PAY: SHE CAN NOT
TRANSPORT FREIGHT TO AUSTRALIA: REASONS FOR THE SAME: MOTION HER
NORMAL CONDITION: MUST NOT BE MADE A DOCK: DELIVERY OF FREIGHTS:
MAMMOTH STEAMERS TO BRAZIL: LARGE CLIPPERS LIE IDLE: NOT EVEN THIS
LARGE CLASS OF STEAMERS CAN LIVE ON THEIR OWN RECEIPTS: EFFICIENT
MAIL STEAMERS CARRY BUT LITTLE EXCEPT PASSENGERS: SOME HEAVY EXTRA
EXPENSES IN REGULAR MAIL LINES: PACIFIC MAIL COMPANY'S LARGE EXTRA
FLEET, AND ITS EFFECTS: THE IMMENSE ACCOUNT OF ITEMS AND EXTRAS: A
PARTIAL LIST: THE HAVRE AND COLLINS DOCKS: GREAT EXPENSE OF
FEEDING PASSENGERS: VIEWS OF MURRAY AND ATHERTON ON THE COST OF
RUNNING STEAMERS, AND THE NECESSITY OF THE PRESENT MAIL SERVICE.
From the foregoing Section it is evident that the cost of running
ocean steamers is enormous, and that in the chief element of
expenditure it increases as the cube of the velocity. This, although
true, is certainly a startling ratio of increase, and calculated to
arouse attention to the difficulties of postal marine navigation.
Seeing that ocean speed is attainable at so high a cost, we naturally
conclude that fast mail steamers can not live on their own receipts
upon the ocean.
Since Great Britain established her first ocean steam mail in 1833,
she has gone on rapidly increasing the same facilities, until her
noble lines of communication now extend to every land and compass
every sea. The last great contract which she conceded was last year,
to the "European and Australian Company," for carrying the mails on a
second line from Southampton _via_ Suez to Sydney, in Australia, at
L185,000, or $925,000 per year. And although her expenditures for this
service have gradually gone up to above five millions of dollars per
annum, she continues the service as a necessity to her commerce, and a
branch of facilities and accommodations with which the people of the
Kingdom will not dispense. The British Government set out with the
determination to have the advantages of the system, whether it would
pay or not. They believed that the system would eventually become
self-supporting, by reason of the many important improvements then
proposed in the steam-engine, and they have ever since professed to
believe the same thing. But their experience points quite the other
way; and while the service is daily becoming more important to them in
every sense, it is also becoming year by year more expensive.
Contracts which the Admiralty made with several large and prominent
companies in 1838 they renewed at the same or increased subsidies,
after twelve years' operations, in 1850, for another term of twelve
years. And so far from those companies with their many ships on hand
being able to undertake the service for less, they demanded more in
almost every case, and received it from the government. The
improvements which they anticipated in the marine engine were more
than counterbalanced by the rise in the price of fuel and wages all
over the kingdom and the world. In fact, those improvements have been
very few and very small. It still takes nearly as much coal to
evaporate a pound of water as it then did; and the improvements which
have been made were generally patents, and costly in the prime cost of
construction to a degree almost preclusive of increased benefits to
the general service. At any rate, the latest steam adaptations and
improvements have proven unequal to the end proposed, and the cost of
the ocean service is now far heavier than it ever has been before,
simply because of the greater speed required by the public for the
mails and passage.
It had long been hoped that this difficulty of increasing cost in
running ocean steamers might finally be overcome by another means; and
the whole available engineering and ship-building talent of Great
Britain and the United States has been directed not entirely to the
engine department, but to the hulls and to the production of a large
class of ships, which are admissibly cheaper in proportion to size and
expense of running when compared with smaller vessels, if they are
always employed and have full freights and passage. It is well
established that large steamers run proportionally cheaper than small
ones. (_See Table III., page 76._) This arises from the important fact
that the length increases far more rapidly than the breadth and depth.
Consequently the tonnage of the vessel increases much faster than the
resistance. In passing through the water the vessel cuts out a canal
as large as the largest part of its body, which is at the middle of
the ship. If the vessel be here cut in two, the width and depth, or
the beam and hold being multiplied together will give the square
contents of the midship section. Now, when a vessel is doubled in all
of its dimensions, this midship section and consequently the size of
the canal which it cuts in the water, does not increase as rapidly as
the solid contents of the whole ship, and consequently, as the
tonnage. Hence, the resistance to the vessel in passing through the
water does not increase so rapidly as the tonnage which the vessel
will carry.
To make this clearer, let us suppose a vessel of good proportion,
whose length is seven times the beam, or 280 ft. long, 40 ft. wide,
and 30 feet deep. The midship section will be 40 x 30 = 1,200 square
feet: the solid contents will be 40 x 30 x 280 = 336,000 solid feet.
Again, let us double these dimensions, and the ship will be 80 ft.
wide, 60 ft. deep, and 560 feet long. The midship section will be 80 x
60 = 4,800 square feet: the solid contents will be 80 x 60 x 560 =
2,688,000 solid feet. Now, comparing the midship sections, and also
the said contents in each case we have,
Midship Section, 4,800
----- = 4 to 1. Increase as the squares:
Midship Section, 1,200
Solid Contents, 2,688,000
--------- = 8 to 1. Increase as the cubes.
Solid Contents, 336,000
Thus, the midship resistance has increased as four to one, or as the
square, while the solid contents, representing the tonnage, have
increased as eight to one, or as the cube. It is evident that the ship
has but four times the mid-section resistance, while she has eight
times the carrying capacity. Therefore the engine power, and the coal
and weight necessary to propel a ship of twice the lineal dimensions,
or eight times the capacity, would have to be only four times that of
the smaller vessel, speaking in general terms; and as a consequence,
the price of freight, considering the vessels to run at equal speed,
would be but half as much in the larger as in the smaller vessel.
The attempt has been made to seize the evident advantages thus offered
by increasing the size of the hull, until our clippers now reach an
enormous size, and our steamers are stopping but little short of
30,000 tons. The splendid steamer "Leviathan" was built on this idea,
and must prove a splendid triumph in comparative cheapness if she can
only get business so as to run full, and keep herself constantly
employed in her legitimate business, running. But it is hardly
possible that she should be always filled with either freight or
passengers. Some of our large clipper ships have experienced this
difficulty. The time necessary to load and unload is too great for
short routes, although they are well calculated for long passages. If
one of these large steamers fail to get plenty of business the losses
become exceedingly severe. The prime cost is immense; the interest on
the capital and the insurance are very large; and the current expenses
are even beyond those necessary for the government of some cities.
These hazards all taken together more than neutralize the benefits
which arise from extra size and extra proportional cheapness; so that
notwithstanding all of the hopes which some have entertained for the
cheapening of transport in this way, they are probably doomed to
disappointment in the end; and ocean steaming continues as expensive
as ever, and is growing even more expensive than it has ever been
known since its first introduction. (_See Coal Tables, pp. 71 and
75._)
It is clear that, notwithstanding all of the advantages to be gained
from increased size, steamers can not support themselves upon the
ocean. Let us examine further the case of such a ship as the
"Leviathan." I can not see that there is any normal trade in which she
can run successfully. She may transport 6,000 tons of measurement
goods to Australia; but it will be at the expense of fourteen to
sixteen thousand tons of coals if the passage is made in fair time. If
not, sailing vessels will subserve all purposes except travel quite as
well. And certainly there is no class of freight for Australia or any
other portion of the world, which will pay such an enormous coal-bill,
and so many other expenses, and the interest and insurance on three
and a half to four millions of dollars, just to save a few days in so
long a voyage. And if the steamer is to do a freighting as well as
passenger business, then a long voyage is essential to her.
Running is the legitimate business of a steamer. Her costly engines
are put in her for locomotion. Her large corps of engineers, firemen,
and coal-passers, are employed for running her, and are of no use when
she is lying still, although necessarily on full pay. Her condition is
abnormal and unnatural every day that she is lying at the docks, and
taking or discharging freight; and hence, every day that she is thus
employed she is not performing her proper functions. A sailing ship
can better afford to lie still for weeks and await a freight, or
slowly receive or discharge cargo; as she must pay only the interest
on her investment, her dockage, the captain, and watchmen, and perhaps
her depreciation. The prime investment is much less. She has no costly
engines and boilers. So are her current expenses. She has none of the
costly _employees_ that I have named, and who can never leave a
steamer for a day. But eternal motion, flush freights, flush business,
good prices, and constant employment, are everywhere essential to the
steamer.
Suppose the "Leviathan" steamer running between Liverpool and
New-York. She would be occupied ten days at least in receiving her
freight, ten days in running and making port or docks, and ten days in
discharging. Then, she would be employed only one third of her time in
the business for which she was constructed, running; while during two
thirds of it she would be acting simply as a pier or dock, over which
freight would be handled. Now, with her costly engines, and costly and
necessarily idle _employees_, she can not afford to be a dock; neither
can she afford to lie still so long. Nor can she on such conditions
get the freight necessary to her support. The community on neither
side of the water would wish fifteen thousand tons of any class of
freights which she could transport dumped down upon the docks at one
time. They wish it to arrive a little and a little every day, as it is
wanted, just enough to supply the market; and will not lie out of the
money which they pay for it, and have it nearly a month in market
before they need it, just to have it come on the "Leviathan." It must
come along in small lots, just as they need it, and it must be shipped
the day that it is bought, and delivered as soon as the ship is in,
without being the last lot of fifteen thousand tons, and without
keeping the owners so long out of their money. Suppose that A. puts
the first lot of freight in at London: he will be the last to receive,
it in New-York. A smaller steamer taking another lot two days after,
will deliver it before the large ship gets half way over. Or, again,
the small steamer may leave London with it when the large steamer has
nearly arrived at New-York, and deliver the lot here to the owner in
advance. Beside not wishing so large a lot at once, they do not wish
it all in one place. The double advantage of a great number of small
vessels is, that they bring cargo along as it is wanted, and at the
same time distribute it at all of the hundreds of large and small
ports, without first delivering it at some great mammoth terminus, and
then reshipping and distributing it to its final destination.
A gentleman, who is a prominent statesman, recently seriously advised
me not to think of establishing a line of mail steamers between the
United States and Brazil, for the accommodation of the hundreds of
sailing vessels engaged in that trade, but to get up a mammoth company
and run five or six thirty thousand ton steamers, like the Leviathan,
between Norfolk and Rio de Janeiro. He said that the increased size of
the steamer would enable me to carry freight cheaper than sailing
vessels. The reasoning was neither very clear nor convincing to me on
behalf of the mysterious capacities which he attributed to large
steamers. I suggested that, in the first place, there was no cargo
passing either way between the United States and Brazil which could
afford to pay steam transportation under any circumstances; that so
large a cargo could never be obtained at once in Rio de Janeiro or
elsewhere; that the merchants of this country did not wish it all
landed at one place; that it would cost as much to remove it from
Norfolk to the place of consumption, as it would from Rio de Janeiro
to its final destination; that they did not wish it delivered all at
once, but in small lots at a time, and distributed where it was
needed; and that, even if it were at all practicable, which no
business man could for a moment believe, the people would not be
willing to have a fruitful field of industry in shipping occupied by
some great overgrown company, with a great coffee monopoly, which
would surely follow. Too much has been expected of large ships. The
clipper "Great Republic" is not freighted half of her time. The
"Leviathan" can not pay in freighting unless she runs to Australia and
the East-Indies, and runs slowly, on very little coal. She may do very
well with a voluntary cargo, which will load and unload itself in a
hurry, such as a cargo of emigrants, and not steaming at too a high a
speed. But it would require a dozen steamers as tenders to bring these
emigrants from Ireland, Bremen, Havre, Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and other
European cities, to her central depot in England. She would, however,
become a most useful if not indispensable transport vessel for the
British Government.
If the large class of steamers can not live on their own receipts,
much less can the small. An adequate speed for the mails leaves no
available space for cargo. The ship may carry two or three hundred
tons of freight; but it pays perhaps but little more than the handling
and the extra coal necessary to transport its extra weight. As a
general thing, it may be safely said that when a vessel is well
adapted to the mails and passengers she is filled with her own power,
that is, with heavy engines, large boilers, and a large quantity of
fuel, as also with her provisions and baggage. We have already seen
how the size and weight of engines and boilers must increase, as well
as the bulk and cost of the fuel, to gain a little speed. But it is
not generally known how large a quantity of consumable stores and
baggage go in a well-supported mail packet. The greater the postal
efficiency of a steamer the less is it able to carry freight; and the
time will doubtless soon come when the fast mail packets will take
nothing except a few express packages. The Persia now takes scarcely
any freight, and the Vanderbilt can not think of doing it when she
makes fast trips. It is very probable that the whole system of the
ocean will be materially changed; and that while clippers and slow
propellers carry the fine freights, fast vessels filled with their own
power will carry the mails and passengers. And in doing this, they can
not, of course, support themselves; neither will they conflict with
private enterprise in freight transport. It is now the case to a large
extent on most of our American lines.
While the ocean mail steamer must be fast and costly, for the better
acceleration of correspondence and the accommodation of passengers,
she must also go at the appointed hour, whether she is repaired or
not, and wholly irrespective of her freight and passenger list. There
must be no delays for a lot of freight, or for a company of fifty
passengers who have been delayed by the train. She has the mails, and
must go at the hour appointed, whatever it may cost the company, and
however large a lot of costly stores may have to be thrown away. This
punctuality, while it is the means of securing small lots of freight,
prevents also the accommodation of the ship's day of sailing to
arrangements which might otherwise be profitable. This punctuality in
sailing always necessitates large extra expense in repairs. It
frequently happens that companies of men work through the nights and
on Sundays; getting much increased prices for such untimely labor, and
being far less efficient in the night than in the day. If the steamer
has had a long passage from whatever causes, she discharges whatever
she has and takes in her coal in a hurried and costly way, frequently
at fifty per cent. advance on the cost necessary for it if she had
ample time. The only means of avoiding these exigencies is by having
spare ships, which cost as much as any others, but which add nothing
whatsoever to the company's income. It may be safe to say that in
every mail company it is necessary to have one spare, and consequently
unproductive, ship for every three engaged in active service. This
thirty-three per cent. additional outlay would not be necessary except
on a mail line, where punctuality was positively demanded. Yet, it is
one of the heavy items of expense to be incurred by every company
carrying the mails, and with which they can not in any wise dispense,
however well their ships may be built. The "Pacific Mail Steamship
Company" in running their semi-monthly line from Panama to California
and Oregon, keep constantly at their docks eight unemployed steamers
and one tow-boat, ready for all exigencies and accidents, and could
keep their mails going if nearly their whole moving fleet should be
sunk at once. No wonder that they have never missed a single trip, or
lost a single passenger by marine accident since they first started in
1850. But there is another class of costs in running ocean steamers,
which amount to large sums in the aggregate, and of which the people
are generally wholly ignorant. I allude to the items, and what may be
called "odds and ends." It is easily imaginable that a company has to
pay only the bills for wages, for fuel, and for provisions, and that
then the cash-drawer may be locked for the voyage. Indeed, it is
difficult for those accustomed to the marine steam service to sit down
and enumerate by memory in one day the thousand little treasury leaks,
the many wastages, the formidable bill of extras, and the items which
are necessary to keep every thing in its place, and to pay every body
for what he does. The oil-bill of a large steamer would be astonishing
to a novice, until he saw the urns and oil-cans which cling to every
journal, and jet a constant lubricating stream. The tools employed
about a steamer are legion in number, and cost cash. We hear a couple
of cannon fired two or three times as we enter and leave port, or pass
a steamer upon the ocean, and consider it all very fine and inspiring;
but we do not reflect that the guns cost money, and that pound after
pound of powder is not given to the company by the Government or the
public. The steamer carries many fine flags and signals, which cost
cash. An anchor with the chain is lost; another costs cash. Heavy
weather may be on, and it takes some hours to get into the dock. The
extra coal and the tow-boat cost cash. The wheel-house is torn to
pieces against the corner of the pier, and the bulwarks are carried
away by heavy seas; but no one will repair the damage for any thing
short of cash. A large number of lights are by law required to be kept
burning on the wheel-houses and in the rigging all night; but no one
reflects that it took money first to purchase them, and a constant
outlay to keep them trimmed and burning. People suppose that the
captain, or steward, or some body else can take a match and set the
lamp off, and have it burn very nicely; but there are only a few who
know that it takes one man all of his time to clean, fill, adjust,
light, and keep these lamps going, as well as have them extinguished
at the proper time.
I saw to-day a case in point as regards accidental expenses. The
splendid steamship Adriatic sailed at 12. The wind was very high from
the south, and almost blowing a gale. She was lying on the southern
side of the dock, while the Atlantic was lying with her stern at the
end of the dock, near where the Adriatic had to pass in going out. At
the moment of starting, three strong tow-boats were attached to her
bow, and endeavored as she went out to draw her head against the wind,
down stream. But they proved insufficient to the task. The vessel
crushed down the corner of the dock, ran into the Atlantic, and
carried away her stern bulwarks, crushed one of her own large and
costly iron life-boats, and damaged one of her wheel-houses. Now, who
of the two hundred thousand spectators that lined the docks, would pay
the two thousand dollars for the life-boat, a thousand for repairing
the dock and vessels, and the bill for the three tug-boats for two
hours each?
Moreover, we see a pilot get on the steamer at New-York, another at
Southampton, and a third at Havre; but we seldom reflect that the
steamer has to pay a large price to each one of them, both going and
coming. Take the coasting steamers, running between New-York and
Savannah, or Charleston. It appears singular that the New-York pilot
goes all the way to Savannah, that the Savannah pilot comes all the
way to New-York, and that the steamer pays for both of these men all
the time, and feeds them on board all of the time. Yet it is so. Such
is the law; and it amounts to a good many thousands during the year.
And all this, the company must pay, as a part of those items which
take cash, but for which the company never gets any credit from the
public or the Government. Whenever a little accident occurs to the
steamer, it must be towed a few miles at a high price by a tug-boat.
Whenever the Government or friends and visitors come on board, they
expect to be liberally entertained; yet the company must pay for it,
or be considered mean and unworthy of the Government's patronage. Each
ship must have an experienced surgeon, whose wages must be paid like
those of other persons employed, and an apothecary's room and outfit.
The ship must be painted and varnished, and overhauled at every trip;
the upholstering and furnishing must be often renewed; stolen articles
must be replaced; and the breakages of table-wares constantly renewed.
All of this costs cash.
The steamer also has to pay light dues and port charges wherever she
goes. Many of these are exorbitant and unreasonable. In Havre the
"Fulton" and "Arago" must pay nearly twenty-four hundred dollars each
on every departure, or they will not be permitted to leave the docks.
This is no small item for each steamer on every passage that she
makes. At New-York she pays wharfage again. It is not so high, but it
is a large item, and requires the cash. Again, there is the great
shore establishment which every steam company must maintain. Large
docks, and warehouses, and coaling arrangements, staging, watchmen,
porters, and messengers, and a shore-captain equal to those on board,
must all be maintained. The Havre Company pays to the city $4,000 per
year for its dock, $1,200 for its annual repairs, and also for sheds,
fixtures, etc., extra. They keep also two watchmen at $40 each per
month, and other persons in the dock service. The Collins Company have
a necessarily very costly dock both in New-York and Liverpool. That in
New-York would rent for $15,000 per annum. The one in Liverpool is far
more costly. On each they keep a large number of men, with watchmen,
gatekeepers, runners, porters, and clerks, and always keep an office
open. Beside this, is the whole paraphernalia of the office of the
company. There must be offices, clerks, bookkeepers, porters, runners,
etc.; a president, treasurer, and secretary; an attorney, agents, and
agencies; and newspaper advertising, and a hundred little things which
no man can mention. I do not pretend to be able to give an adequate
conception of the innumerable items which so swell the large actual
working expenses of regularly running steamers. Even the charities of
a decently managed company are large. Firemen and engineers become
disabled and must be supported; or they are killed in the service of
the ship, leaving families which no decent company can disregard. The
amount which the West-India Royal Mail Company pays in this way, and
which our noble American lines advance to the deserving, are beyond
all conception of the mere theorist.
There is another source of loss which prevents, mail packets
especially, from paying their expenses on their freight and passenger
earnings. The table on all of our steamships has become exceedingly
expensive, as it has in our hotels. Perhaps there is more necessity
for it on steamers than in the hotels, as passengers are generally
sea-sick, and need every delicacy of life to keep them up. The
supplies which our fine mail packets carry for this purpose are of
almost incredible extent and costliness. No vegetable, fruit, game, or
other rarity that can be kept fifteen days in large masses of ice, is
neglected; so that the table of every steamer is necessarily both
luxurious and expensive. Indeed, it has become so much so, and the
price of passage fare has been reduced so low on all of the prominent
lines, that as a general rule the steamers are not now making much
clear money on their passengers. The expense of keeping passengers was
not half so great six years ago, as it is now; and there appears to be
no safe means of permanent retrenchment. Nothing has been said of
Insurance. This is a most costly item. The Havre Company pay on their
two ships, which are worth about $900,000, nine and a half per cent.
per annum; and Mr. Collins pays on his three ships, which are worth
about $2,200,000, nine per cent. per annum. On the Havre steamers this
amounts to $85,500 per year, which is nearly as much as the mail pay;
and on the Collins, to $198,000 per annum. And these are among what we
call the items of mail steamship expenditure. I do not know the sums
paid by the United States Mail, or by the Pacific Mail Companies.
I will here give the views of Messrs. Murray and Atherton on the cost
of steam, as they replied to letters of inquiry, which I addressed
them Sept. 14, 1857. Mr. Murray says in answer to
_Query 2_. "It is certainly my impression that ocean steamers of
sufficient speed to carry the mails with any thing like regularity,
will not pay upon any route with which I am acquainted, without
assistance from Government."
_Query 5_: Can Parliament do better in economy than in her present
mail contracts, all things considered? Mr. Murray replies:
"I do not see how Parliament can avoid paying the large subsidies she
does for the mail contracts under present circumstances."
_Query 4_: Is the steamship stock of Great Britain, subsidized or
unsubsidized, paying stock, and is there much disposition among
capitalists to invest, even in the stock of subsidized companies? He
replies:
"I do not think the steamship stock of Great Britain to be in a very
nourishing condition: in fact, I know of only one company (the
Peninsular and Oriental) in which I should like to invest money."
Mr. Atherton replies to a query regarding the cost of running steamers
as follows:
"As to whether the effective performance of high speed mail service is
compatible with ordinary mercantile service without government
subsidy, I am of opinion that the mutual relation of Speed and Cost in
connection with long sea-voyages has never yet been duly appreciated
by owners, managers, or agents in charge of steam shipping affairs.
An acceleration of steaming speed involves an increase of cost
expenses, and a decrease of mercantile earnings, as dependent on
_freight per ton weight_ far beyond what is generally supposed."
He further says in reply to Query 9, which is as follows:
Do you know of any disposition in the Government to cut down the ocean
mail service, as an unproductive expenditure? He says:
"It is impossible to estimate the national value of an effective mail
service throughout the whole globe; the breaking of one link, though
apparently of trivial consequence, impairs the whole system. I can not
imagine that there is any disposition to impair the completeness of
the mail system."
From the foregoing considerations it is palpable that fast ocean
steamers can not live on their own receipts. And the same will in most
cases hold true of freighting and other steamers of all classes, which
depend entirely on steam as their agent of locomotion. Propellers will
hardly form an exception to this rule. If the power and the passengers
fill the hull, if the coal bill and other expenses increase as rapidly
as indicated for mail packets, if engineering improvements do not
advance as rapidly as the price of coals, if larger and more cheaply
running ships can not get an adequate support in business, if there
are the many leakages and expenses indicated, and if all of the
expenses of running steamers are continually increasing from year to
year rather than diminishing, then we may never expect to see the mail
and passenger steamers of the ocean become self-supporting, or less
dependent than now, on the fostering care of the Government and the
national treasury.[C]
[C] Since this was written, Mr. Drayton has shown me the receipt for
this year's _taxes_ on the Havre Company, which are $7,782, the two
ships being valued at $500,000 only.
SECTION VI.
HOW CAN MAIL SPEED BE ATTAINED?
THE TRANSMARINE COMPARED WITH THE INLAND POST: OUR PAST SPASMODIC
EFFORTS: NEED SOME SYSTEM: FRANCE AROUSED TO STEAM: THE
SAILING-SHIP MAIL: THE NAVAL STEAM MAIL: THE PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
MAIL: ALL INADEQUATE AND ABANDONED: GREAT BRITAIN'S EXPERIENCE IN
ALL THESE METHODS: NAVAL VESSELS CAN NOT BE ADAPTED TO THE MAIL
SERVICE: WILL PROPELLERS MEET THE WANTS OF MAIL TRANSPORT, WITH OR
WITHOUT SUBSIDY: POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING THE PROPELLER: ITS
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: BOURNE'S OPINION: ROBERT MURRAY:
PROPELLERS TOO OFTEN ON THE DOCKS: THEY ARE VERY DISAGREEABLE
PASSENGER VESSELS: IF PROPELLERS RUN MORE CHEAPLY IT IS BECAUSE
THEY ARE SLOWER: COMPARED WITH SAIL: UNPROFITABLE STOCK: CROSKEY'S
LINE: PROPELLERS LIVE ON CHANCES AND CHARTERS: IRON AS A MATERIAL:
SENDING THE MAILS BY SLOW PROPELLERS WOULD BE AN UNFAIR
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST SAILING VESSELS: INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE CAN
NOT SUPPLY MAIL FACILITIES: THEREFORE IT IS THE DUTY OF THE
GOVERNMENT.
I have endeavored to prove in the foregoing Section that ocean mail
steamers can not live on their own receipts. The question now arises,
how can we secure speed for the mails and passengers upon the ocean?
With so many expenses and so small an income the fast ocean steamer
can not become profitable to even the most thoroughly organized and
best administered companies. Much less can it be successfully run by
individuals and individual enterprise, which has never so many
reliable resources at command as a strong, chartered company. It is
true that there are a few prominent transatlantic routes where
steamers can run as auxiliary propellers; but the number of them is
small, and the speed attained will by no means prove sufficient for
postal purposes. The transmarine postal service has been a source of
constant annoyance to almost every commercial nation. The overland
mails have generally been self-supporting, and it has been a favorite
idea that those on the sea should be so also; although there is no
just reason why either should be necessarily so any more than in the
cases of the Navy and the Army; branches of the service which entail
large expenses on the Government, and yet without a moiety of the
benefits which directly flow from the postal service to all classes of
community. No nation except Great Britain has come up to the issue and
faced this question boldly. Almost every other country, not excepting
our own, has been hanging back on the subject of the transmarine post,
"waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up," in the
improvements of ocean steam navigation, which might obviate the
necessity of paying for the ocean transit. But every hope has been
disappointed; and instead of realizing these wishes the case has been
growing worse year by year, until we are at last compelled to move in
the matter, or lose our commerce, our ocean _prestige_, and sink down
contented with a second or third-rate position among commercial
nations, and acknowledge ourselves tributary to the far-seeing and
far-reaching, and superior policy of our competitors.
The United States have indeed become galvanically aroused now and
then, as in 1847 and '8, to a self-protecting and a self-developing
system; but as soon as one faint effort has been made, we have,
instead of pursuing that effort and developing it fully, relapsed back
into our old indifference, and given the whole available talent of the
Government either to the administration, or to the everlasting
discussion of petty politics. During the time that President Buchanan
was Secretary of State, some of our noblest efforts for the
establishment of ocean mails were made, with his fullest countenance
and aid; but the policy then inaugurated with prospects so hopeful for
our commercial future, and which has operated so healthfully ever
since, is now half abandoned, or left without notice to take care of
itself; until it may be to-day said that we have no steam policy, and
run our ocean mails only by expedients. This ever has been and ever
will be unfortunate for us, and costly. Individuals and companies
build steamers for the accidents of trade, let them lie still a year
or two, then pounce upon some disorganized trade, suck the life-blood
from it like vampires, and at last leave it, the very corpse of
commerce, lying at the public door. All such irregular traffic is
injurious to the best interests of the country, destroys all generous
and manly competition, and proves most clearly the want of a
Government steam mail system. France has been awaiting the issues of
time, and under a too high expectation for the improvements of the
age, until she finds that unless she inaugurates and sustains a
liberal steam policy, and becomes less dependent on foreigners for her
mails, she will have the commerce of the world swept from her shores
as by a whirlwind of enterprise. She has now become aroused, and has
determined to establish three great lines of communication, one with
the United States, one with the West-Indies, Central America, the
Spanish Main, and Mexico, and one with Brazil and La Plata. She has
found, that it will no longer do to abandon her mails to fate, and
that in the end it will be far more profitable to pay even largely for
good mails than to do without them. Hence, her offer to give to the
American, West-Indian, and Brazilian service named an annual
subvention of fourteen million _Francs_, or nearly three million
dollars, to be continued for twenty years, which the Government deems
a sufficient period for the establishment and test of a system. (_See
_projet_ of Franco-American Navigation, page 198._)
Among the many expedients adopted for the transmission of the foreign
post are those of employing ordinary sailing vessels on the one hand,
or the vessels of the war marine on the other. Both systems have been
effectually and forever exploded and abandoned. The objections to
sailing vessels are very numerous. They are, in the first place, too
slow. They are too uncertain in their days of sailing and arrival.
They can never be placed under the direction of the Department because
they are private property, devoted to private uses, and generally
accomplish their ends by private means; one of the most prominent of
which is, to keep back all letters except those going to their own
consignees. If a merchant runs his ship for personal gain it is not to
be supposed that he will carry the letters of his commercial
competitors, and thus forestall his own speculations. Sailing vessels
have no proper accommodations for the mails, and can not fairly be
forced either to transport or to deliver them. The uncertainties of
cargo are such that they can not sail on fixed days with punctuality.
But the great difficulty is their want of speed and the uncertainty of
their progress or arrival. Whenever they have been employed by the
British Government for postal service they have always proven
themselves inefficient and unreliable. Whenever they have been
superceded by steamers, the postal income, before small, has gone up
rapidly to five, ten, or twenty times the former income. This was well
illustrated in the British and Brazilian lines. The Parliamentary
returns for 1842, when postal service with Brazil and La Plata was
performed by a line of fine sailing packets, give the total income
from postages at L5,034, 13_d_, 6_s_ Lord Canning, the British Post
Master General, stated that, in 1852, two years after the Royal Mail
Steam Packets commenced running to Brazil and La Plata, the income
from postages was L44,091, 17_s_, or nearly nine times as much as when
the mails went by sailing vessels.[D] Ship owners have a strong
aversion to receiving letters for the places to which their ships are
bound. As a barque was about sailing from New-York for Demerara in
1855, I called on the owner, who was on the dock, just before the
vessel got under way, and asked that some letters which I held in my
hand, might be taken to Georgetown. He said that he could not take
them; that he sailed his vessel to make money; and that he could not
do other people's business. As I walked away from him rather abruptly,
he called to me and wished to know to whom the letters were addressed.
I told him, to Sir Edmund Wodehouse, the Governor of the Province; and
that they related to the establishment of steam mail facilities
between this country and that Province. He at once begged my pardon
and explained; asked that I would let him send the letters; and said,
moreover, that he would at any time be glad to give me a passage there
and back on that business.
[D] See Parliamentary Papers for 1852-3, postal affairs, Report of
Lord Canning, July 8, 1853.
The experiment of employing the steamers of the Navy in the postal
service has been very fully made by Great Britain. After attempts on a
considerable number of lines, and extending over a period of ten
years, this service has been found inefficient, cumbrous, and more
costly, and has been entirely abandoned. Murray, page 172, says that
Mr. Anderson, Managing Director of the Peninsular and Oriental
Company, said before the Parliamentary Committee as follows: "The
postal communication can be done much cheaper by private contract
steamers than by Government boats, because of the merchandise and
passengers carried. The steam communication between Southampton and
Alexandria, with vessels of 300 to 400 horse power, was done for 4_s_
6_d_, per mile. From Suez to Ceylon, Calcutta, and Hong Kong, with
vessels of 400 to 500 horse power, for 17_s_, 1_d_ per mile. The
East-India Company's line (of naval vessels) between Suez and Bombay
with vessels of only 250 to 300 horse power, cost 30_s_ per mile. Her
Majesty's vessels in the Mediterranean cost about 21_s_ per mile."
France also tried the experiment, but soon abandoned the system, as
fruitless and exceedingly annoying. It is quite a plausible idea that
our mails should go under the flag of the country, with power to
protect them, and that vessels generally supposed to be idle should be
engaged in some useful service. But this presupposes a fact which does
not exist. No vessels in the world are more actively employed than
those of the American navy, and there are many stations on which we
could employ twice as many as we have with excellent effect on our
commerce and foreign relations generally. We constantly hear the
complaint that the Secretary of the Navy has no steamer for some
immediately necessary or indispensable service. But if he had, and if
two dozen steamers were lying all the time idle in our navy yards,
they would probably not be installed six months in the postal service
until they would be positively demanded in some way in that of the
nation, and this diversion would at once frustrate all of the postal
and commercial plans of the country.
But the difficulties in the way of this service are so numerous as to
be readily palpable to all who examine it. No vessel that is well
fitted for naval service is well adapted to that of the post. The post
requires great speed, and hence, full-powered vessels. The navy does
not require so great speed, and hence, the steamers are seldom more
than auxiliaries. They are built heavier and fuller, and are not so
adapted to speed. Filling them with the power necessary to drive them
with sufficient rapidity for mail packets would unfit them for the
efficient service of war. Naval vessels are, moreover, filled and
weighted down with guns, stores, men, and a thousand things which
would be in the way if they were employed for the mails. They have no
state-rooms, cabins, saloons, etc.; and if they had them so as to
accommodate passengers, they would be unfit for the war service.
Unless so fitted they could not accommodate passengers, as they will
not lash themselves up in hammocks under the deck, as thick as grass,
as man-of-war's men will. If they are to be strictly naval vessels
while running, they will be filled with their own men, and could not
take passengers even if they had state-room accommodations for them.
They would thus be deprived entirely of this source of income. Again,
they could take no freight; and if a passenger mail steamer has to
depend upon both freight and passengers for an income to meet the
large expenses, which are generally three, five, and often even ten
times the sum of subsidy received from the Government, then the naval
vessel running in the postal service will be deprived of both these
sources of income, and must fall back on the department for all of its
expenses, which would be three, five, and even ten times as much as
the sum paid private companies for carrying the mail.
The average round trips of the Pacific mail steamers from Panama to
San Francisco and Olympia, and back, are, beyond doubt, enormously
expensive; while they receive from the Government only $14,500. This
is, consequently, but a small fractional part of their income. The
trip of the "Arago," or "Fulton," to Havre and back, costs about
$45,000, while the mail pay was only $12,500, under the old contract,
and is now probably not above $7,500 per round trip.[E] These
estimates are made exclusive of insurance, which is 9-1/2 per cent.;
repairs, 10 per cent.; and depreciation, at least five per cent.
Here, again, the Government gives but a meagre part of the large sum
necessary to keep those packets running. Now, if naval vessels were
carrying the same mails, and were deprived of the income which they
receive for freight and passengers, it would evidently cost the
Government six to eight times as much to carry the mails as it now
does, saying nothing about the income from the mails, which is
trifling. But this class of vessels never could subserve the purposes
of rapid correspondence. If they could carry freight and passengers,
the difficulties would still be insuperable. It would cost twice as
much for the department to accomplish the same object through its
officers and its routine as it would for private companies or
individuals, who have but the one business and the one purpose in
running their vessels. No man, company, or even department of the
Government, can accomplish two important and difficult ends by the
same agency at the same time. Either the one or the other must suffer
and be neglected, or both will be but imperfectly and ineffectively
performed. Many structures of this kind fall of their own
superincumbent weight and clumsiness. If naval vessels thus running
even had passengers they would never be satisfied or well treated. A
captain and crew, to be agreeable and satisfactory to passengers, must
feel themselves under obligation to them for their patronage, and
would be compelled to exert themselves to merit the best feelings of
their patrons. This could never be the case with naval gentlemen, who
would be dependent for their living on the department only. It is
probable that no one seriously entertains such a plan as this for the
postal service, as this must be a distinct, partly self-supporting,
unbroken, and continuous service, while that of the Navy must also be
distinct, independent, and efficiently directed to one great cardinal
object. Therefore, we can not secure postal service by this means.
[E] This line receives the total postages, ocean and inland, which in
1856 were, according to the Post Master General's report, $88,483.99,
or $7,373.33 per round voyage. (_See Letter of the Hon. Horatio King,
1st Asst. Post Master General._)
As much has been said of Propellers during the few years past, I
propose examining the question with the view of ascertaining whether
they are adapted to the mail service, and whether we can secure from
them sufficient speed without a subsidy from the Government. It is
well known that the British are a far more steady-going people than
ourselves, and not being so rushing do not require so much speed. They
have had an easy control of the European and foreign commerce
generally around them; and when competition aroused them to additional
efforts they did not endeavor to outstride themselves, but took merely
an additional step of progress and speed, and adopted the propeller
for their coasting business, because it was a little faster than wind,
and yet cheaper than full steam. And because so many propellers have
been built for the peculiar short-route trade of Great Britain, many
people in this country can not see why we do not adopt the propeller
for our foreign trade. I have already shown (_See page 44_) that there
are some short routes on which steam is cheaper than the wind, and
that on others of greater length steamers can not transport freight
under any conditions. (_See latter part of Section IV., on the Cost of
Steam._) I do not propose making the Screw Propeller in any way an
exception to the position stated; and shall consequently maintain that
it will never be the means of attaining a rapid and yet cheap mail
speed.
There are no greater errors entertained by the public on any subject
connected with steam navigation than concerning the Screw Propeller.
It is generally supposed that it is a more economical and effective
application of power than the side-wheel, which is a mistake: it is
generally supposed that, with the same amount of power and all other
conditions equal, the propeller will not run as rapidly as the
side-wheel, which is true of steaming in a sea-way or against a
head-wind, but a mistake as regards smooth water: it is generally
supposed that the engines weigh less, take up less room, and cost
less, which is all a mistake. The best authors on this subject and the
most eminent builders generally agree, that in England and Scotland,
where the propeller has attained its greatest perfection, the
difference between the side-wheel and the propeller as an application
of power is very slight and hardly appreciable; or that the same
number of tons of coal will drive two ships of the same size at the
same speed in smooth water; but that the side-wheel has greatly the
advantage in a head-sea or during rough weather generally. Many
persons who do not understand the subject, have theorized in just the
contrary direction. They say that in rough weather the screw has the
advantage, because it is alway in the water, etc. Experience shows
just the reverse; and theory will bear the practice out. If, in the
side-wheel one wheel is part of the time out, the other has, at any
rate, the whole force of the engines, and the floats sink to and take
hold on a denser, heavier, and less easily yielding stratum of water;
so that the progress is nearly the same. The back current or opposing
wave can not materially affect it, because the float is at the extreme
end of the arm where the travel is greatest, and is always more rapid
than the wave. It is not so with the screw. The blade which meets the
wave is not placed at the end of a long arm where the travel is very
rapid and the motion more sudden than that of the wave. This blade
extends all the way along from its extreme end, where the motion is
rapid, to the centre, or the shaft, where there is no motion; and all
intermediate parts of this blade move so slowly, that the wave of
greater rapidity counteracts it, and checks its progress. The
side-wheel applies its power at the extreme periphery, where the
travel is greatest, while the screw applies it all along between the
point of extreme rapidity, and the stationary point in the shaft.
There is, moreover, much power lost as the oblique blades of the screw
rise and fall in a vertical line while the vessel is heaving.
In the new edition (1855) of "Bourne on the Propeller," he says in the
preface:
"Large vessels, we know, are both physically and commercially more
advantageous than small vessels, provided only they can be filled with
cargo; but in some cases in which small paddle vessels have been
superseded by large screw vessels, the superior result due to an
increased size of hull has been imputed to a superior efficiency of
the propeller. No fact, however, is more conclusively established than
this, that the efficiency of paddles and of the screw as propelling
instruments is very nearly the same; and in cases in which geared
engines are employed to drive a screw vessel, the machinery will take
up about the same amount of room as if paddles had been used, and the
result will be much the same as if paddles had been adopted. When
direct acting engines, however, are employed, the machinery will
occupy a much less space in screw vessels than is possible in paddle
vessels, and the use of direct acting engines in screw propellers is
necessary, therefore, for the realization of the full measure of
advantage, which screw propulsion is able to afford."
Atherton says of the propeller in his "Marine Engine Construction and
Classification," page 45:
"Its operation has been critically compared with that of the
paddle-wheel, under various conditions of engine power, and experience
has shown that, under circumstances which admit of the screw propeller
being favorably applied, it is equal to the paddle-wheel as an
effective means of applying engine power to the propulsion of the
vessel." Again:
I recently addressed to Mr. Atherton the following question: "Taking
two ships of the same _size, displacement, and power, or coal_, the
one a side-wheel, the other screw: What will be their relative _speed
and carrying capacity_ in smooth water? What in a sea-way, or in
regular transatlantic navigation?" He replied under address, "Woolwich
Royal Dock Yard, 14 Sept., 1857:
"It is my opinion, based on experiment, that a well-applied screw is
quite equal to the paddle-wheel for giving out the power by which it
is itself driven, that is, in smooth water. I can not say from
observation or experience what is the comparative operation at sea."
I addressed the same inquiry to Mr. Robert Murray, of Southampton, who
has written an able work, entitled, "The Marine Engine," and who is
considered excellent authority, and have from him the following reply,
dated Southampton, 19 Sept., 1857:
"With regard to the relative efficiency of the paddle-wheel and screw
for full-powered mail steamers, I am disposed to prefer the
paddle-wheel for _transatlantic_ steaming, in which the vessel has to
contend with so much rough weather and heavy sea, and the screw for
the Mediterranean and the Pacific routes.
"For auxiliary steamers of any kind the screw has manifestly the
advantage.
"With regard to the actual speed obtained from each mode of propulsion
in vessels of the same power and form, and with the propeller in its
best trim, I am disposed to prefer the paddle-wheel, either in smooth
water, or when steaming head to wind, but in other conditions the
screw." What he means by "other conditions," is evidently when the
screw is running with a fair wind, which is seldom, so as to use her
sails. Bourne also states very clearly in two places that the
propeller is by no means so efficient in a sea-way, as a side-wheel
steamer, and admits that when a vessel is steaming at eleven or twelve
knots per hour, the sails not only do not aid her, but frequently
materially retard her motion. (_See Bourne, page 237._)
All of these authorities agree that the application of a given power
produces about the same effect, whether through the side-wheel or the
screw; and if so, it is evident that the screw can not attain the same
speed as the side-wheel, without burning as much fuel, and having as
costly and as heavy engines and boilers. Indeed, taking the whole
evidence together, it appears well settled by these authorities, that
the screw is equal to the side-wheel only in smooth water, and that,
as a consequence of this distinction, it is not equal to it in general
ocean navigation. It has been seen that much of its power is lost when
it contends with head-winds and seas, and that when it has attained a
fair average mail speed, the wind will help it very little, if any,
under the most favorable circumstances. It is, therefore, reasonable
to infer that it would cost more to attain a high average mail speed
with the propeller than with the side-wheel. If in attaining this
average mail speed the advantages are clearly in favor of the
side-wheel, there is no hope that we shall accomplish the mail service
at cheaper rates than heretofore, as this agency can not be introduced
toward that end; for not only is the prime cost of the steamer the
same, as also the consumption of fuel per mile, but there are other
and numerous disadvantages connected with the propeller, which are
wholly unknown to the side-wheel.
It is a well-known fact that propellers are compelled to be placed
upon the docks three or four times as often as side-wheels. The screw
either breaks, and must be replaced by another, or it cuts the boxes
out, or works the stern of the vessel to pieces. Any one of these
requires that the steamer shall be docked, however great the expense;
and as these accidents are constantly occurring in even the best
constructed and best regulated propellers, it follows that they must
be constantly on the docks. This species of vessel being built
necessarily narrower than the side-wheel, it rolls more, and is found
to be an exceedingly disagreeable passenger vessel. Propellers have
become deservedly unpopular the world over; and if it were possible
for them to be faster than the side-wheel, it is hardly probable that
first-class passengers would even then go by them, as they are known
to be so exceedingly uncomfortable.
The propeller, I have before said, is erroneously supposed to run more
cheaply than the side-wheel. I think that I have shown that as a mail
packet it will cost more to run it at a given speed. But there are
certain cases in which it does run more cheaply; these are, however,
only where the speed is low, and the machinery not geared, and where,
as a consequence, sail can be used to more advantage than on a
side-wheel. The economy is not the result of the application of the
power by the screw, as compared with the side-wheel, but of the sail
alone; and this economy is more or less, just as canvas is employed
more or less in the propulsion. The screw is the better form of
steamer for using sail; and the low speed at which propellers
generally run, is a means of making that sail more effective. We have
already seen, in the section on the cost of steam, that it generally
requires twice the original quantity of fuel to increase the speed
from eight to ten knots per hour in either style of steamer. Now, it
is a well-known fact that the transatlantic propeller lines are on the
average more than two knots per hour short of the speed of the
side-wheels, which makes their passages across the Atlantic from two
to six days longer than by the mail packets. They thus save from one
half to two thirds of the fuel, and deducting its prime cost from the
bill of expenses, they add to that of receipts the freight on the
cargo, which occupies the space of the coal saved. They consequently
run on much smaller expenses; but only when their speed is less than
that of the side-wheels, and far too low for effective postal
service. Economy thus purchased at the expense of speed may do for
freight, and enable propellers to derive some profits from certain
cargoes; but it can never subserve the purposes of mails and
passengers. It must alway be recollected that the effective speed of
the propeller is reduced just in the ratio of the greater economy as
compared with the side-wheel.
It thus appears that with any appreciable economy the propeller must
be slower than the side-wheel; and that with any considerable economy
it can be but little faster than sail. It has, however, the advantage
over sail of being rather more reliable and punctual, and can make
arrivals and departures rather more matters of certainty. This at the
same time secures to it a better class of freights as well as vast
numbers of emigrants which together, enable it to incur the extra
expense over a sailing vessel. The cargo is less in the propeller than
in the sail, as much of the room is occupied by the engines, boilers,
and fuel. Hence, the prices must be proportionally higher to meet the
deficit arising from the smaller quantity. But there are very few
trades in which propellers can run as noticed on so long a voyage as
3,000 to 4,000 miles; and these lie between a few countries in Europe
and the ports of the United States. Their support arises chiefly from
the emigrant trade; as without this their freights would not on any
known lines enable them to run one month. And this is not simply an
assumption of theory, but the experience of all the European lines. I
was recently told in England and France by many persons who had no
interest or desire to deceive me, that propeller stock was invariably
a burthen to every body having any thing to do with it, and could
generally be bought at sixty to seventy cents on the dollar, while
much of it would not bring half of its cost price. They cited as an
evidence the fact that no line of propellers is permanent, unless in
some way connected with a subsidized company, as in the case of the
Cunard screws running between Liverpool and New-York. The Glasgow line
is also an exception, and is said to pay dividends. The screw lines
are always hunting a home and a new trade. (_See views of Mr. Murray,
page 111._)
The only way in which some lines can run is by getting their stock at
half its value and thus having to pay the interest on a smaller sum.
The "General Screw Steam shipping Company" is an example. The Company
had from the first lost money, although they had nine fine steamers,
and were compelled finally to close up and sell out. Mr. Croskey, the
United States Consul at Southampton, supposed that they might be put
into a new trade and make a living on a smaller capital stock; that
is, if the new company should get them at half their value. The
transfer was made and the "European and American Steamship Company"
was established. Some of the vessels were put into the trade between
Bremen and London, Southampton, and New-York; some between Antwerp and
Brazil; and some between Hamburg and Brazil. None of these lines have
paid, except, perhaps, the New-York, which has had large cargoes of
emigrants; and Mr. Croskey freely acknowledges that the new Company
would have been ruined but for the Indian Revolt, which enabled him to
charter five of the vessels to the Government at good prices, for the
conveyance of troops by way of the Cape of Good Hope to India. Had the
lines on which they were running been profitable they would never have
been chartered to the Government. But like the whole propeller service
of the world, this Company took the chances; and it may be safely
asserted that but for the opportunities which vessels of this class
find for chartering to the Government they could not live on their own
enterprise three years. The number of these vessels is now very
unnecessarily large; and many of them have been built to supply labor
to the establishments, and for taking the chances of Government
employment at high prices. Their largest employment results from
casualties rather than from the pursuit of legitimate trade. But the
business is overdone, even for the English market, when foreign war is
rather the rule, and peace the exception. But few propellers are now
building; these few being small and intended for the coasting, or the
short-line Continental trade, where they will readily pay. (_See page
42 for propeller stock; also pages 44 and 45 for the propeller
coasting service._)
It does not materially alter the complexion of this question to say
that propellers are generally constructed of iron. There is not such a
difference in their prime cost or their stowage capacity as to enable
them to take the large receipts necessary to their support; while
certainly there is no advantage to be gained in speed from iron as a
material of construction. The iron propeller can be constructed
cheaper than the wooden in Great Britain, because of the great
scarcity of timber and the large and redundant quantity of iron; and
an iron vessel has some advantage in being able to stow a larger
cargo, from the fact that her sides and bottom are not so thick as
those of wooden vessels; but these considerations do not very
materially affect the consumption of fuel, and the quantity necessary
to carry a ton of freight. Iron is probably a better material than
wood for the construction of propellers, as the part about the stern,
where the screw works, can be made stronger, and as all iron vessels
can be rather more readily divided into water-tight compartments by
bulkheads. Yet as a material of construction it offers no transcendent
advantages over the side-wheel for transatlantic navigation, while it
is not probably so safe, or so comfortable for passengers. Yet, it
will be well for us to adopt the propeller largely in our coasting
trade, and iron as the material of its construction.
We have thus seen that to save fuel and carry freight, the speed of
the propeller must be low; indeed very low, if it is to live on its
own receipts. It is therefore clearly impossible that with such
comparatively low speed it should carry the mail. Neither can it
support itself except by this low speed. By running thus but a
fraction faster than the sailing vessel, it can command on a few
prominent lines a large freight; but to give vessels of such speed a
subsidy for carrying the mails would be both to render the mail
service inefficient, and to enable the propeller to compete with the
sailing lines of the country at very undue advantage, which would be
an unfair discrimination against all sailing interests. Should the
propeller, like the side-wheel, run fast enough on the average trips
of the year to carry the mails, which would certainly be at the
expense and abandonment of any considerable freighting business, then
the Government might with propriety pay for the mails, as these
steamers would not injure the freighting business of sailing vessels.
The outcry by sail owners against steamers as competitors can not be
against the mail packets; for these carry but little freight; but
against these slow screws which should be treated like all other
freighting vessels, notwithstanding the fact that some of their owners
have had the impudence to propose them for the paid mail service and
to ask a subsidy from the Government, but the better to cripple the
interests of sailing vessels. As well might Government subsidize fast
clippers, because they are a little faster than regular, ordinary
sailers. When the steamer runs with sufficient rapidity for the mails,
the sailing ship has nothing to fear from competition, and has all the
benefits of the more rapid correspondence. Thus, Government must pay
only where there is a fast mail, whether it be in a side-wheel or
propeller; otherwise it destroys individual competition and cripples
private enterprise.
If, as we have seen from all the facts regarding the expense of
running steamers, individual enterprise can not supply adequately
rapid ocean postal facilities, and if such facilities are yet wholly
indispensable to the commerce, the people, and the Government, the
only alternative presented is for the Government to pay for them, and
to require, as it has of all the American lines, such a speed as to
prevent injurious competition to sailing vessels and private
enterprise. Much capital is made by certain ship owners out of what
they call the undue discrimination of subsidies against their vessels;
but they can never lay this charge at the door of the fast and very
expensive mail packets, or elsewhere than upon the slow auxiliary
propellers which any of them have a right to attempt to run, and which
the Government never did and never will subsidize. This is the source
and the only source of all the vaunted injurious effects of steam on
the sailing stock of the country. It is a question with which the
Government has nothing to do, and which must be settled between
propeller owners and sail owners themselves, and with reference,
perhaps, to the wishes of their customers. Mail steamers have enough
to do to get money to pay their coal, provision, repair, and
innumerable extras bills, without wrangling over the freighting
business. And, from all this we conclude that the only means of the
Government securing an adequate mail speed is by paying for it. (_See
remarks of Committee on this subject, Paper E._)
SECTION VII.
WHAT IS THE DUTY OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE?
RESUME OF THE PREVIOUS SECTIONS AND ARGUMENTS: IT IS THE DUTY OF
THE GOVERNMENT TO FURNISH RAPID STEAM MAILS: OUR PEOPLE APPRECIATE
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMERCE, AND OF LIBERAL POSTAL FACILITIES: THE
GOVERNMENT IS ESTABLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PEOPLE: IT MUST
FOSTER THEIR INTERESTS AND DEVELOP THEIR INDUSTRY: THE WANT OF
SUCH MAILS HAS CAUSED THE NEGLECT OF MANY PROFITABLE BRANCHES OF
INDUSTRY: AS A CONSEQUENCE WE HAVE LOST IMMENSE TRAFFIC: THE
EUROPEAN MANUFACTURING SYSTEM AND OURS: FIELDS OF TRADE NATURALLY
PERTAINING TO US: OUR ALMOST SYSTEMATIC NEGLECT OF THEM: WHY IS
GREAT BRITAIN'S COMMERCE SO LARGE: CAUSES AND THEIR EFFECTS: HER
WEST-INDIA LINE RECEIVES A LARGER SUBSIDY THAN ALL THE FOREIGN
LINES OF THE UNITED STATES COMBINED: INDIFFERENCE SHOWN BY
CONGRESS TO MANY IMPORTANT FIELDS OF COMMERCE: INSTANCES OF MAIL
FACILITIES CREATING LARGE TRADE: THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL
COMPANY'S TESTIMONY: THE BRITISH AND BRAZILIAN TRADE: SOME
DEDUCTIONS FROM THE FIGURES: CALIFORNIA SHORN OF HALF HER GLORY:
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NOT MISERS: THEY WISH THEIR OWN PUBLIC
TREASURE EXPENDED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR INDUSTRY: OUR
COMMERCIAL CLASSES COMPLAIN THAT THEY ARE DEPRIVED OF THE
PRIVILEGE OF COMPETING WITH OTHER NATIONS.
1. _Conceded_ (Section I.) _that steam mails upon the ocean control
the commerce and diplomacy of the world; that they are essential to
our commercial and producing country; that we have not established the
ocean mail facilities commensurate with our national ability and the
demands of our commerce; and that we to-day are largely dependent on,
and tributary to our greatest commercial rival, Great Britain, for the
postal facilities, which should be purely national, American, and
under our own exclusive control:_
2. _Conceded_ (Section II.) _that fast ocean mails are exceedingly
desirable for our commerce, our defenses, our diplomacy, the
management of our squadrons, our national standing, and that they are
demanded by our people at large:_
3. _Conceded_ (Section III.) _that fast steamers alone can furnish
rapid transport to the mails; that these steamers can not rely on
freights; that sailing vessels will ever carry staple freights at a
much lower figure, and sufficiently quickly; that while steam is
eminently successful in the coasting trade, it can not possibly be so
in the transatlantic freighting business; and that the rapid transit
of the mails and the slower and more deliberate transport of freight
is the law of nature:_
4. _Conceded_ (Section IV.) _that high, adequate mail speed is
extremely costly, in the prime construction of vessels, their repairs,
and their more numerous employees; that the quantity of fuel consumed
is enormous, and ruinous to unaided private enterprise; and that this
is clearly proven both by theory and indisputable facts as well as by
the concurrent testimony of the ablest writers on ocean steam
navigation:_
5. _Conceded_ (Section V.) _that ocean mail steamers can not live on
their own receipts; that neither the latest nor the anticipated
improvements in steam shipping promise any change in this fact; that
self-support is not likely to be attained by increasing the size of
steamers; that the propelling power in fast steamers occupies all of
the available space not devoted to passengers and express freight; and
that steamers must be fast to do successful mail and profitable
passenger service:_
6. _Conceded_ (Section VI.) _that sailing vessels can not
successfully transport the mails; that the propeller can not transport
them as rapidly or more cheaply than side-wheel vessels; that with any
considerable economy of fuel and other running expenses, it is but
little faster than the sailing vessel; that to patronize these slow
vessels with the mails the Government would unjustly discriminate
against sailing vessels in the transport of freights; that we can not
in any sense depend on the vessels of the Navy for the transport of
the mails; that individual enterprise can not support fast steamers;
and that not even American private enterprise can under any conditions
furnish a sufficiently rapid steam mail and passenger marine: then,_
The inference is clear and unavoidable, and we come irresistibly to
the conclusion, that it is the duty of the Government to its people to
establish and maintain an extensive, well-organized, and rapid steam
mail marine, for the benefit of production, commerce, diplomacy,
defenses, the character of the nation, and the public at large; and as
there is positively no other source of adequate and effective support,
to pay liberally for the same out of any funds in the national
treasury, belonging to the enterprising, liberal, and enlightened
people of the Republic. There is no clearer duty of the Legislative
and Executive Government to the industrious people of the country than
the establishment of liberal, large, and ready postal facilities, for
the better and more successful conduct of that industry, whether those
facilities be upon land or upon the sea. It is sometimes difficult to
extend our vision to any other sphere than that in which we move and
have our experiences; and thus there are many persons who, while they
would revolt at the idea that the Government should refuse to run
four-horse coaches to some little unimportant country town, would be
wholly unable to grasp the great commercial world and the wide oceans
over which their own products are to float, and from whose trade the
Government derives the large duties which prevent these same persons
having to pay direct taxes. They do not understand the necessity of
commerce, to even their own prosperity, or of the innumerable steam
mail lines which must convey the correspondence essential to the safe
and proper conduct of that commerce. But the great mass of the
American people understand these questions, understand the reflex
influences of all such facilities, and knowing how essential they are
to the proper development of enterprise and industry in whatever
channel or field, boldly claim it as a right that easy postal
communication shall be afforded them as well upon the high seas as
upon the interior land routes.
It is generally admitted that the government of a country is
established for the benefit of the people; and constitutions
conflicting with this purpose are simply subversive of justice and
liberty. If labor is a thing so desirable and so noble in a people
that the protection of its rewards in the form of property becomes one
of the highest attributes of good government, then it is equally an
indisputable attribute of that protecting and fostering government to
afford those facilities to labor, which experience shows that it
needs, and which the people can not attain in their individual
capacity, or without the intervention of the government. It is idle
for a government to say to the people that they are free, when it
denies to them the ordinarily approved means of making and conserving
wealth. The common experience of mankind points to commerce as the
next great means to production in creating national and individual
wealth. It equally shows us that foreign commerce can not flourish
without liberal foreign mail facilities, and the means of ready
transit of persons, papers, and specie. It also clearly indicates
that the most successful means of accomplishing this, is the
employment of subsidized national mail steamships. It therefore
becomes obviously the duty of a paternal government to an industrious,
enterprising, producing, and trading people, to give them the rapid
ocean steam mails necessary to the profitable prosecution of their
industry.
We have for many years neglected many important fields of foreign
trade, and many profitable branches of industry and art, which we
could easily have nurtured into sources of income and wealth, by
adopting the foreign mail system, so wisely introduced and extended by
Great Britain. And in the absence of such efforts on our part, a large
and remunerative traffic has been swept from us, and this suicidal
neglect has been the means of our subordination to so many controlling
foreign influences. We are at this very hour commercially enslaved by
England, France, Brazil, and the East. How is it that the trade of the
world is in the hands of Great Britain; that she absorbs most of every
nation's raw material; and that she and France supply the world with
ten thousand articles of industry, that should furnish work to our
manufacturers, and freight to our ships? There are some who will say
that it is because of her manufacturing system. Grant it. But how did
she establish that imperious, and overshadowing, and powerful system,
and how does she keep it up? Her energetic people have ever had the
fostering care of her government. Their steam mail system has been
established for twenty-four years. It has furnished the people with
the means of easy transport, rapid correspondence, the remittance of
specie, and the shipment of light manufactured goods to every corner
of the world; it has invited foreigners from every land to her shores
and her markets; and it has been the means of throwing the raw
material of the whole world into the lap of the British manufacturer
and artisan, and enabling them thus to control the markets in every
land.
But we can get along, it is said, without such a manufacturing system
and such an ubiquity of trade. This is a mistake. The productions of
our soil are not sufficiently indispensable to the outer world to
bring us all of the money we need for importing the millions of
foreign follies, to which our people have become attached. It is not
right or best for us that while our "Lowell Drillings" stand
preeminent over the world, we should so far neglect the Brazilian, La
Platan, New-Granadian, Venezuelan, and East-Indian trade, that
Manchester shall continue, as she now does, to manufacture an inferior
fabric, post it off by her steamers, forestall the market, and cheat
us out of our profits; and that, by means of the reputation which our
skill has produced. And a few more crises like the one through which
we have just begun to pass, will open our eyes to the necessity of
doing something ourselves to make money, and show that foreign trade
in every form, and the sale of every species of product known to the
industry of a skillful people, must be watched with jealous national
and individual care, and nurtured as we would nurture a young and
tender child. There are many fields of trade which may be said to
pertain naturally to this country, and which we have as wholly
neglected and yielded to Great Britain, as if she had a divine right
to the monopoly of the entire commerce of the world. No one can
believe that the trade of the islands which gem the Carribbean Sea and
the Gulf of Mexico, or the great Spanish Main, or the Guianas, or the
Orinoco and Amazon, or the extended coast of Brazil, the Platan
Republics, or Mexico, and the Central American States lying just at
our door, belongs naturally to Europe, or that their productions
should be transported in European ships, or that their supplies come
naturally five thousand miles across the ocean, rather than go a few
hundred miles from our own shores, in our own ships, and for the
benefit of our own merchants and producers. Yet, such is the
impression which our apathy of effort in those regions would produce.
We have acted as if our people had no right of information concerning
the West-Indies and South-America, until it had gone to Europe and
been emasculated of all its virtues.
The same thing is true of the Pacific South-American, the Chinese, and
the East-Indian trade. That of the Pacific coast is not half so far
from us, as it is from Europe; that of China, and the East-Indies, and
Australia, is by many thousand miles nearer to us; and yet the greater
portion of the commerce of all three of those great fields is
triumphantly borne off by Great Britain alone. And why is all this?
Why is her foreign trade sixteen hundred millions of dollars per year,
while ours is only seven hundred millions? Causes can not fail to
produce their effects; and prime causes, however little understood in
their half obscure workings, are yet made manifest as the sun at
noon-day by effects so brilliant and important as these. Here, as
ever, the tree is known by its fruits. The tree of knowledge, of
British wisdom, "whose mortal taste brought death into our world," our
Western world of commerce, "with loss of Eden," and many a fair
paradise of enterprise and effort, has filled the bleak little islands
of Britain with the golden fruits of every clime, and scattered
broadcast among its people the rich ambrosia of foreign commerce. When
it was necessary to command the trade of the West-Indies, Central
America, and Mexico, lying at our southern door, she established the
Royal Steam Packet service with thirteen lines and twenty steamers,
and paid it for the first ten years L240,000, and for the present
twelve years L270,000 per annum. In addition to this she pays L25,000
per annum for continuing the same lines down the west coast of
South-America to Valparaiso, and contracts to pay the Royal Mail
Company an annual addition of L75,000 in the event of coal, freight,
insurance, etc., being at anytime higher than they were at the date of
the contract in 1850. This aggregate sum of L295,000, or $1,475,000,
to say nothing of the increased allowance of L75,000 probably now paid
to this one branch alone of the British service, is considerably
greater than that paid for the entire foreign mail service of the
United States.
Now, it is a very extraordinary fact that, with such a field of
commerce lying along the sunny side of our republic, and with such an
array of facilities for converting it into European channels, our
Government has done literally nothing to protect the rights of its
citizens and give them the means, which they do not now possess, of a
fair competition with other countries for this rich and remunerative
trade. Yet such is the fact; all of the petitions and memorials of the
seaboard cities to the contrary notwithstanding. The same is the case
with the Pacific and East-India trade before noticed. While we have a
noble chain of communication between the Eastern States and California
and Oregon, which is manifestly essential to the integrity of the
Union and the continued possession of our rich Western territory;
while California is admirably situated to command the trade of those
vast regions and concentrate it in the United States; while the
British have several lines to China, the Indies, Australia, and
Southern as well as Western Africa; and while our citizens have
petitioned Congress year after year for even the most limited steam
mail facilities to those regions, which could be afforded at the
smallest price, it is truly astonishing that these facts and petitions
have hitherto been treated with contempt, and almost ruled out of
Congress as soon as presented. Such has been the course of action
that, instead of fostering foreign commerce and encouraging the
enterprise and industry of the people, the Government has really
repressed that enterprise, and practically commanded the intelligent
commercial classes of this country to look upon foreign trade as
forbidden fruit which it was never intended should be grown upon our
soil.
It is not to be disputed that foreign mail steamers, by creating
almost unlimited facilities for the conduct of trade, greatly increase
the commerce of the nation with the countries to which they run. The
evidences of this position are patent all around us, and too evident
to need recital. The growth of our trade with Germany, France,
Switzerland, and Great Britain since the establishment of the Bremen,
Havre, and Liverpool lines of steamers has been unprecedented in the
history of our commerce. That with California has sprung up as by
magic at the touch of steam, and has assumed a magnitude and
permanence in eight years which but for the steam mail and passenger
accommodations created, could not have been developed under thirty
years. The mail accommodations have wholly transformed our commerce
with Havana and Cuba, until they are wrested from foreign commercial
dominion, as reason suggests that they must ere long be from foreign
political thraldom. As well might Europe attempt to attach the little
island of Nantucket to some of her own dynasties as to deprive the
United States of the control of the trade of Cuba so long as her steam
lines are continued to that island.
Mr. Anderson, the Managing Director of the Peninsular and Oriental
Company, recently testified before a Committee of the House of
Commons, that, "the advantages of the communication (between England
and Australia) should not be estimated merely by the postage. After
steam communication to Constantinople and the Levant was opened, our
exports to those quarters increased by L1,200,000 a year. The actual
value of goods exported from Southampton alone, last year, (1848-9,)
by those steamers is nearly L1,000,000 sterling. Greek merchants
state that the certainty and rapidity of communication enable them to
turn their capital over so much quicker. Forty new Greek
establishments have been formed in this country since steam
communication was established. The imports in that trade, fine raw
materials, silk, goats' hair, etc., came here to be manufactured.
Supposing the trade to increase one million, and wages amount to
L600,000, calculating taxes at 20 per cent., an income of revenue of
L120,000 would result from steam communication."
I am prepared to speak from my own observation, and from the reliable
statistics of the Brazilian Government, from the pen of the late Prime
Minister, the _Marquis of Parana_, a few facts of the same nature
relative to the trade between Great Britain and the Brazilian Empire.
In a paper which I prepared for the New-York Historical Society, and
published in "_Brazil and the Brazilians_," Philadelphia, Childs &
Peterson, I said, at page 618, in speaking of the trade of Great
Britain:
"From 1840 to 1850 her total imports from Brazil made no increase. In
1853, they had advanced one hundred and fifty per cent. on 1848; and,
in 1855, they had advanced over 1848--or the average of the ten years
noticed--about three hundred per cent. This, however, it must be
recollected, was in coffee, for reexportation; a trade which was lost
to our merchants and to our shipping. Her total exports to Brazil from
1840 to 1850 were stationary at about two and a half million pounds
sterling annually. In 1851--the first year after steam by the Royal
Mail Company--they advanced forty per cent.; and, in 1854, they had
advanced one hundred and two per cent. on 1850. Thus, her exports have
doubled in five years, from a stationary point before the
establishment of steam mail facilities; whereas ours have been
thirteen years in making the same increase. The total trade between
Brazil and Great Britain has increased in an unprecedented ratio. The
combined British imports and exports, up to 1850, averaged L3,645,833
annually; but, in 1855, these had reached L8,162,455. Thus, _the
British trade increased two hundred and twenty-five per cent. in five
years after the first line of steamers was established to Brazil_."
In the analysis of the tables presenting these facts I had occasion to
make the following deductions, page 619:
"We see, from a generalization and combination of these tables and
analyses, that our greatest advance in the Brazilian trade has arisen
from imports instead of exports; whereas the trade of Great Britain
has advanced in both; and particularly in her exports, which were
already large; the tendency being to enrich Great Britain and to
impoverish us: that until 1850 her exports were stationary, while ours
were increasing; due, doubtless, to the superiority of our clipper
ships at that period, which placed us much nearer than England to
Brazil: that she is now taking the coffee-trade away from us, and
giving it to her own and other European merchants and shipping: that
she is rivalling us in the rubber-trade; wholly distancing us in that
of manufactures: and that from 1850 to 1855 she has doubled a large
trade of profitable exports, and increased her aggregate imports and
exports two hundred and twenty-five per cent.; whereas it has taken us
thirteen years to double a small trade, composed mostly of imports: it
being evident that, with equal facilities, we could outstrip Great
Britain in nearly all the elements of this Brazil trade, as we were
doing for the ten years from 1840 to 1850.
"It will hardly be necessary to suggest to the wise and reflecting
merchant or statesman the evident causes producing this startling
effect. It is the effect of steamship mail and passenger facilities,
so well understood by the wise and forecasting British statesmen who
established the Southampton, Brazil, and La Plata lines; not as a
means of giving revenue to the General Post-Office, but of encouraging
foreign trade and stimulating British industry. If England by steam
has overtaken and neutralized our clippers and embarrassed our trade,
then we have only to employ the same agent, and, from geographical
advantages, we feel assured that we will soon surpass her as
certainly, and even more effectually, than she has us. She sweeps our
seas, and we offer her no resistance or competition. Not satisfied
with the Royal Mail lines, it is reported that she is making a
contract with Mr. Cunard to run another line along by the side of the
Royal Mail, from Liverpool to Aspinwall, and from Panama to the
East-Indies and China. She gains in these seas an invaluable trade,
because she employs the proper means for its attainment and promotion,
while we do not. Hence, although much farther off she is practically
much nearer. Suppose that Great Britain had no steamers to the great
sea at her threshold, the Mediterranean; and we had the enterprise to
run a great trunk-line to Gibraltar and Malta, and nine branches from
these termini to all the great points of commerce in Mediterranean
Europe, Asia, and Africa. Would we not soon command the trade of all
Southern Europe, of Western Asia, and of Africa? But we find her
wisely occupying her own territory, and that it is impossible for us
to get possession. If we had been there, she would soon have given us
competition. But Great Britain did not wait for competition to urge
her to her duty to her people. She could easily have continued the
trade already possessed; but she could enlarge and invigorate it by
steam, and she did it; not from outside pressure, but for the
advantages which it always presents _per se_. For the same reason we
should have established steam to the West-Indies, Brazil, the Spanish
Main, and La Plata long since; to foster a trade naturally ours, but
practically another's. It is preeminently necessary now when steam,
under the system of Great Britain, is ruining our trade; whereas, by a
similar process, we could reestablish ours, if not paralyze theirs.
Neutrality is impossible. Indifference to the present posture of
affairs only leads to the ruin of our interests. We must advance and
contend with Great Britain and Europe step by step, and employ the
means of which we are generally so boastful, or we will be forced to
retreat from the field, and be harassed into ignominious submission."
As in the case of Brazil and La Plata so is it in that of the Pacific
South-American States, and the great fields of Australia, China, and
the East-Indies generally, as before noticed. The trade of Great
Britain with those regions has gone on at a rate of progression truly
astonishing. Ours has continued just as much behind it as the slow and
uncertain sailing vessel is behind the rapid and reliable mail
steamer. Our Pacific possessions have been shorn of half their glory
and power by the refusal of those steam aids which would by the
present time have converted half the commerce of the fields mentioned
into the new channels of American enterprise and transport. The
injustice has operated equally against the people of California and
Oregon, and against ourselves of the East; while there is no good and
valid reason for thus making the Pacific coast the _ultima thule_ of
civilized, steam enterprise. The people of the United States, of
whatever class, are far from being misers. They do not desire an
economy of two or three millions of dollars per year, which would give
them great opportunities of obtaining wealth and power, merely that
the sum so economized may be squandered, with twenty or thirty
millions more, on schemes of doubtful expediency, and of no real or
pressing necessity. They do not, indeed, ask that these mail
accommodations may be paid for simply because much money is uselessly
otherwise spent; but because these accommodations are necessary to
themselves, to the development of their enterprise and labor, and to
the general good of all the active and industrial, and, consequently,
all of the worthy classes. It is a question of little importance to
the great people of this country, whether the Government expends forty
millions per year or eighty millions. But it would be a delightful
consolation to them to know that while they might be paying ten,
twenty, or thirty millions per year more than strictly necessary,
three or four millions of it at least were so appropriated as to
better enable them to pay the large general tax for the aggregate sum.
No one hears any complaint regarding the sum necessary to support the
General Government, except by those in remote districts, who have but
an infinitesimal interest involved, but an imaginary part of the sum
to pay, and who, producing but little, and having nothing to do,
assume the right to manage the affairs of those who really have
something at stake. The American people are willing and anxious that
their money shall be expended for their own benefit, for the benefit
of those who are to come after them, and for the glory of our great
country.
The many instances of our dereliction in the establishment of steam
mail facilities, and the failure to establish locomotive
accommodations for our merchants and other business classes call
loudly for a change in our affairs, and the establishment of a
national steam policy in the place of the accidental and irregular
support hitherto given to foreign steam enterprise. The nation demands
the means of competing with other nations. We have lost much of the
trade of the world without it. The commercial men of this country
complain bitterly that the Government gives them no facilities for
conducting our trade or cultivating the large fields of enterprise
successfully which I have named, and competing, on fair terms, with
foreign merchants. They see the West-Indies, the Spanish-American
Republics, Brazil, Central America, and Mexico, lying right at our
southern door, and the whole Pacific coast, the East-Indies, China,
the Mauritius, Australia, and the Pacific Islands but half as far from
California as from England, all much nearer to us than to Great
Britain and other European countries, and offering us a trade which
large as it necessarily is to-day, is yet destined within the coming
generation to transcend that of all other portions of the globe
combined, in extent, in richness, and in the profits which it will
yield. The capacity of these great fields for development and
expansion is indefinite and almost boundless. There is no doubt that
an American trade could be developed in those regions within the next
thirty years whose opulence and magnificence would rival and far
surpass our entire commerce of the world at the present time, and give
to our nation a riches and a power which would enable it to shape the
destinies of the entire civilized world.
Our commercial classes complain not so much that Great Britain has the
_monopoly_ of this trade, which naturally belongs to the United
States; not so much that she conducts that trade by _steam
facilities_, to the detriment of us who have none; not so much that
she has _lines of steamers_ by the dozen, and weekly communication, as
well as the advantage and use of all the other European lines; but
that the citizens of the United States are not permitted to enter into
a fair competition for this trade. Our people probably surpass every
other people in the world in individual and aggregate enterprise and
energy. They ask as few favors of the Government as any people on
earth; doing every thing that is practicable, and that energy and
capital can accomplish, without the intervention of the Government.
But there are some things that, with the entire concentrated skill and
ability of the nation, her citizens can not accomplish; and one of
these is the maintenance of steamship mail lines upon the ocean. In
ordinary enterprises competition necessitates improvement; and
mechanical improvement and skill, in due course of time, enable
individuals to compass ends otherwise deemed impracticable and
unattainable. These attempts have all been made, in every form, with
ocean steam navigation. It was supposed, as elsewhere stated, that, by
superior engines and great economy of fuel, a speed high enough for
all ordinary mail purposes could be attained, and yet leave enough
room for freight and passengers to enable the income from these, at
rates much higher than on sailing vessels, to pay for fuel,
engineering, and the great additional cost of running a steamer. Vast
engineering skill and ability have been directed to this point both in
this country and Europe; and this object has been declared the
commercial desideratum of the age. But all of these efforts have
failed in their design; so much so that there is not, to-day, more
than one permanent steam line upon the high seas of the whole world
which is not sustained by a subsidy from some government. Many
attempts have been made by British merchants to do a freighting and
passenger business in _propellers_, without any mail pay, and
depending on their receipts alone. These, too, have all failed. No
permanent line of these propellers has been established to any of our
American cities, except by subsidized companies, owning side-wheel
steamers also.
The only trade in which it has ever been supposed that steamers of any
description whatever could carry freight is that between Europe and
the United States, where there are large quantities of rich, costly
goods, in small and valuable packages, which pay an extra rate of
freight, as express goods; but, even here, the steam freighting
system without governmental aid has proved a failure. There have been
one or two cases where a steamer could make money in carrying freight
and passengers alone, as between this country and California during
the early part of the gold crisis, and owing to the great distance
around the Horn, as well as an unnaturally large passenger trade.
This, however, was a state of commerce wholly abnormal and of short
duration, and such as is not likely to occur once in a century, or
last very long; or prove more than an infinitesimal exception to the
great general laws of freighting and commercial transport.
Great Britain has learned this doctrine from experience, and is
profiting by it. Her wise merchants and statesmen know that commerce
can be accommodated only by rapid steam mails, which have regular and
reliable periods for arrival and departure; and that, although these
mails cost the Government and the people something more than those
slow and uncertain communications which depend on sailing vessels and
overland transit, yet they are enabled, by the facilities which they
afford, to monopolize and control the commerce of the world, and
divert it from even the most natural channels into the lap of British
wealth. It is in this view of the subject that our merchants so justly
complain that our Government, by refusing to give them the facilities
commensurate with the demands of the age, _deprives_ them of the
_power_ or _privilege_ of competing with foreign nations, and palsies
their hands, simply because they are not able, individually and by
their associated capital, to do that which the Government only can do.
The reason why our mail steamers require the aid of our Government is
that foreign Governments subsidize their lines; hence our individual
enterprise can not compete with their individual enterprise and that
of their Government combined. The reason why foreign Governments thus
subsidize their mail lines is, that _those lines can not depend upon
their own receipts for support, or run without Governmental aid_. This
is also the prime reason for Governmental aid in running our lines.
These facts are undisputed by steamshipmen and merchants, and are
verified by the practice of the whole world, and the great number of
failures in attempting to sustain steamers, from year to year, on
regular lines, by their receipts alone.
Being thus unable to compete with other countries under our present
limited steam arrangements, and considering the startling expenses
which attend the running of steamers, such as their fuel, their extra
prime cost, their large repairs, their depreciation, their wages,
their insurance, their dock charges and light dues, their shore
establishments, and the long list which comes under the head of items
and accidents, it is unquestionably the duty of the Government to meet
this question in a frank and resolute manner, and afford to the people
all those necessary facilities which they can get in no other way.
SECTION VIII.
HOW SHALL THE GOVERNMENT DISCHARGE THIS DUTY?
WE NEED A STEAM MAIL SYSTEM: HOW OUR LINES HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED:
AMERICAN AND BRITISH POLICY CONTRASTED: SPASMODIC AND ENDURING
LEGISLATION: MR. POLK'S ADMINISTRATION ENDEAVORED TO INAUGURATE A
POLICY: GEN. RUSK ENDEAVORED TO EXTEND IT: THE TERM OF SERVICE TOO
SHORT: COMPANIES SHOULD HAVE LONGER PERIODS: A LEGISLATION OF
EXPEDIENTS: MUST SUBSIDIZE PRIVATE COMPANIES FOR A LONG TERM OF
YEARS: SHOULD WE GIVE TO OUR POSTAL VESSELS THE NAVAL FEATURE: OUR
MAIL LINES GAVE AN IMPULSE TO SHIP-BUILDING: LET US HAVE STEAM
MAILS ON THEIR MERITS: NO NAVAL FEATURE SUBTERFUGES: THESE VESSELS
HIGHLY USEFUL IN WAR: THEY LIBERALLY SUPPLY THE NAVY WITH
EXPERIENCED ENGINEERS WHEN NECESSARY: THE BRITISH MAIL PACKETS
GENERALLY FIT FOR WAR SERVICE: LORD CANNING'S REPORT: EXPEDIENTS
PROPOSED FOR CARRYING THE MAILS: BY FOREIGN INSTEAD OF AMERICAN
VESSELS: DEGRADING EXPEDIENCY AND SUBSERVIENCY: WE CAN NOT SECURE
MAIL SERVICE BY GIVING THE GROSS RECEIPTS: THE GENERAL TREASURY
SHOULD PAY FOR THE TRANSMARINE POST: REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW
CONTRACTS: METHOD OF MAKING CONTRACTS: THE LOWEST BIDDER AND THE
LAND SERVICE: THE OCEAN SERVICE VERY DIFFERENT: BUT LITTLE
UNDERSTOOD: LOWEST-BIDDER SYSTEM FAILURES: SENATOR RUSK'S OPINION:
INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF LOWEST BIDDER: INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS AND RIGHTS.
As it will scarcely be denied that the Government should furnish ample
and liberal mail facilities, as well foreign as domestic, to its
people, in view of the well-established fact that these facilities can
not be attained in any other way, the question naturally arises, how
shall the Government discharge this clear and unquestionable duty to
the citizen? I trust that it will be admitted that we can not rely on
the Sailing-ship mail, or the Naval steam mail, or the Private
Enterprise mail; while it is equally evident that we can not depend on
the Foreigner's mail, or should not if we could.
A first step toward this important end, and one which every interest
of the country demands, is the establishment of a governmental steam
mail system, a fixed steam policy, based upon common-sense, and guided
by the dictates of justice to the enterprising citizen, at the same
time that it is productive of certain efficiency toward the people. It
can not be denied that our legislation on this subject has hitherto
been that of expedients, and merely temporary arrangement. We have had
no wise, immutable purpose, no great fixed rule of action. We have
laid no broad foundations for a system which should extend itself
wherever our trade extended, and work equitably with all of the large
interests of the American people. When, by a spasmodic effort, we
opened communication in one direction, and found that we had a few
steamers running, we became self-complacently satisfied with our
action, shut our ears to all other equally urgent claims and appeals,
forgot that we had simply commenced instead of having finished, and
contented ourselves with the appearance of a mail system rather than
its realization. When we established the two lines to Europe, which
were positively necessary to commerce, it was not so much because
those were the only necessary lines, but because they were urged by
parties who stood ready to build the ships, and run them in the
service. The California lines were established because the people
would not longer tolerate the neglect of our large and important
interests in the Pacific. But there were several other lines which
were of the greatest importance to our commerce and manufactures,
extending to fields where we could have established the richest trade,
but which never enlisted the attention of Congress, simply because
there was no one who made it his special business to press them. This
of itself manifested great want of a matured steam mail system, which
should operate equally on all of the great interests of the country,
and extend its facilities wherever American industry and enterprise
could find a footing.
We need not only a steam system, but a fixed steam policy that shall
extend from generation to generation, and operate equally, as well at
all times and in all fields of American enterprise, as upon all
classes. No such system can be built up in one year or in ten years;
much less by one spasmodic steam effort, even in the right direction,
followed by an eternal sleep, or a total indifference. It is the work
of ages. It is not a system which, if set in motion, will work on
perpetually of itself, without assistance. It needs constant care and
fostering; and its results prove it worthy of all the care and
attention that can be expended on it. The mature system of Great
Britain has not grown up in a day. It has been constantly before the
British public during twenty-four years, and has never been neglected
for an hour. There has been no hiatus in it; for this would have
disrupted the system, broken the chain, and resulted in disastrous
failure. Neither has the one great purpose been changed every few
years to suit the caprice of some new cabinet. It was a great cardinal
idea, founded in reason and justice, that has gone on maturing from
year to year; and none had the hardihood to touch it, or trifle with
the people's purpose in establishing it; not even so far as to make it
a passing text for demagoguery. It composed and yet composes a part of
the far-reaching and controlling policy of the British crown; a
purpose limited not to the visions of to-day, or the financial crises
and panics of to-morrow, or to some new field of British effort, to
be developed in a year or two; but limited to that time only, when men
shall cease the strife of commerce, abandon the pursuit of wealth,
yield the palm of enterprise, and unlearn the love of money and its
power. There has been nothing spasmodic in this; nothing fitful,
alluring, and evanescent; nothing that held out a hope to the
enterprising man, and deceived him in all the essential conditions of
its fulfillment in the end. It was founded in reason, founded in
necessity; and it was well determined that it should endure.
It is creditable to the administration of President Polk, that there
was one effort made in this country to found a similar judicious and
fruitful system. We had until that time taken no notice whatever of
marine steam navigation; and British steamers swarmed around our coast
north and south, thick as cruisers in a blockade. (_See Paper E._)
Indeed, it was a veritable blockade of our commerce, and told most
disastrously upon our enterprise and independence. The Cabinet of Mr.
Polk, headed by our present venerable Chief Magistrate of the Nation,
determined to reverse this system, and did it as effectually as any
thing can be accomplished in a country, where a given policy, however
wisely inaugurated, has no guaranty or safeguard against the
revolutionary changes of new administrations. They established a basis
of action, and inaugurated three steam lines under contracts which
placed them beyond the attacks of the capricious; well knowing that if
the system had merits, they would be manifested to the country within
ten years by the fruits of these lines. The period was shorter than
that designated by Great Britain; yet with the immensely rapid
development of our people it inwrought itself into the affections of
the public so effectually, even in this short time, that none will
dare risk his reputation by attacking it boldly, or by other means
than an indirect and harassing guerrilla warfare. But here the effort
ended, and the system, deprived of the aids and new lines which
Congress should have extended it, and of that continued development
which was necessary to its perfection and usefulness, has been left to
work itself out and die, until it may be resurrected by another great
demonstration of public sentiment, and by an administration bold
enough and far-seeing enough to grasp the interests of the whole
country, and do itself and the people justice. It is due, however, to
the reputation of a lamented and departed statesman, the large-minded
and noble Gen. Rusk, of Texas, to say that he made a manly and
systematic effort in 1852, after seeing the fruitful workings of the
three lines noticed, to extend, enlarge, and fortify the good
beginnings of President Polk and Secretary Buchanan, by inaugurating
several new lines, and establishing a permanent and recognized basis
of action. But in all this he was thwarted by the machinations of
narrow-minded men, who deemed it a higher effort to agitate the
country and endeavor to separate the North and the South, than
establish and secure those mighty aids to industry which should give
development, wealth, strength, and security to the whole American
Union, and check the fratricidal blow of the disunionist.
It is essential that we shall have in this country a policy on this
subject, which shall remain untouched under the changes of
administrations, just as standard commercial laws and regulations
remain untouched. No system of such magnitude can mature or cheapen
when but a few years are assigned to it, and when there is no
certainty that it will survive the life of a single ship. Companies
undertaking the mail service under such circumstances must be paid
larger sums for their general establishment, that they may be enabled
to meet the exigencies and caprices of irregular legislation, which
may at the close of their contracts suddenly throw a dozen good ships
out of employment. Every well-regulated and efficient company
necessarily builds new steamers through all the stages of its
existence; and when the term of its service expires, necessarily has
several partially new ships. If the term of service is to be short,
and if there is no rule by which those who do good service on a line
are to have, in renewing contracts, the preference of new and untried
parties, then it is reasonable to infer that they can not themselves
incur the expense of so large an establishment of new and useless
vessels, and that their service is either to be inefficient and
unreliable, or that the department must pay a larger price than
necessary under a judicious and fixed system. The want of a reliable
system operates injuriously both on the department and on the
contractors. It subjects us to expedients, and to all of the evils of
constant lobbying and legislation on the subject. And one of the first
wants of this system is an extension of the term of contracts. The
period hitherto assigned has not been long enough for the proper
development of the service. The short term is a constant premium for
building an inferior class of vessels, which shall have become
worthless by the time that the contract expires, so as not to entail
loss upon the company. Such vessels are ever unfit for the mails or
passengers. Short terms also keep the subject continually before
Congress and the Executive Government, and foster that extensive and
depraved lobbying which has wrought so injuriously on our legislation.
Moreover, there is no reason why the term of service should not be
extended, when it will certainly simplify and cheapen it, if, as I
have assumed, the progress of engineering is not such as to throw
well-built ships out of use within twelve years, or in any way
introduce improvements by which the Government could get the service
at lower rates. Nor have we any reliable hope for the future. We wait
until commerce has been perverted into unnatural channels, and then
become suddenly and galvanically aroused, when it is too late to
effect a change until two or three years have expired in building
ships. We thus find ourselves in the midst of the difficulty without
having foreseen it, and without being prepared for it. The wise man
planned the campaign before others had even contemplated any
disturbance of the peace. As a matter of course he controlled the
battle, and brought up the victory in his own way.
The only effectual means of accomplishing the foreign mail service in
this country is by liberally subsidizing private companies for a long
term of years, such as will induce them to provide first-class ships,
run them rapidly, and fit them for the most comfortable conveyance of
passengers. Lord Canning in his Report to both houses of Parliament on
the contract packet system in 1853, says, after showing that the naval
vessels have been abandoned for the mail service: "There is no
peculiarity in this branch of business which renders it an exception
to the general rule, that work is done more cheaply by contract than
by Government agency." But when the idea of performing the mail
service by naval vessels was wholly abandoned in 1837, another
question of equal importance arose, as to how far the mail steam
packets might be made efficient as vessels of war in times of
emergency. As a consequence of the discussion nearly all of the mail
contracts made from that day until this by Great Britain contained
stipulations requiring the vessels to be capable of carrying an
armament, in addition to the requirements of speed and punctuality.
The same thing was done in this country in 1846-7; and one of the
principal means of carrying the Collins bill through Congress was the
self-deception of making the steamers equivalent to vessels of war. It
was a plea to which statesmen and enterprising business men resorted,
and was used as a means of securing those commercial facilities which
constitutional quibblers would not vote for directly, but which they
would afford if allowed the subterfuge of "defenses" as a means of
protecting them against a certain set of constituencies who foolishly
opposed the extension of commerce. Many of these would not grant one
dollar for the aid of that commerce on which the revenues of the
country and their own real prosperity and wealth depended; but they
were willing to suffer long and bleed freely at the old and just,
though unrenewable war-cry: "The British and the Hessians." Our case
was rather different from that of Great Britain which had a large
steam navy while we had neither naval nor commercial steamers. There
was, consequently, and there yet is, more propriety in demanding a
capacity for the naval service in our vessels than in the case of
Great Britain.
In obedience to this very proper spirit we produced some of the
noblest vessels that ever floated. Stronger vessels than the Collins,
Aspinwall, and Pacific Mail Steamers were never built in any country.
And although we have fortunately not been compelled to test their
capacity in naval transport or in action, yet there is no doubt that
they would do honorable and efficient service in both, and by no means
sully the glory of the American colors. The establishment of these and
the Havre and Bremen lines, certainly gave an impulse to shipbuilding
and the manufacture of steam machinery in this country which could
have been given in no other way, and which in a few short years has
demonstrated that we are behind no people on earth in capacity for
these noble and difficult arts. And although we are yet but in our
infancy in experience, as compared, especially with Great Britain, yet
the increasing demand for mail facilities, the necessity for a large
war marine, and the rapidly increasing coast steam service, all
indicate that we shall require a large amount of this class of work
and a mechanical skill to which our ingenious countrymen have thus
proven themselves entirely adequate. And although it is certainly
indispensable that we shall ever be provided adequately against all
the exigencies of foreign war, yet it is to be trusted that bold and
fearless statesmen will support and extend our steam mail service on
the tenable grounds of its necessity to commerce and our citizens at
large, and that its productive services will not be obscured by or
subordinated to the subterfuges and deceits of the war marine feature.
Let us have steam mail facilities on high and independent grounds, and
for their benefits _per se_. The system is abundantly tenable on this
ground alone; on this only ground that it will probably ever
practically occupy. Let us also have our war marine, efficiently
separate, as it should be. Let both systems be perfect, both
independent, both mutually conducive to the prosperity and the defense
of the country. But there is no doubt that these vessels would do
excellent service in a conflict. They could swarm any particular coast
with troops in a few days. They could easily run away from dangerous
vessels, or pursue and overtake others when necessary. They are alway
needed for transport, while the time will probably never again come
when mail steamers will not be even more necessary during war than in
times of peace. But this is not all. They fit and train a large number
of marine engineers who are ever ready at a day's warning to enter
efficiently on the naval service. This is a point of greater
importance than is generally supposed. Engineers, however skilled in
the shops, are wholly unfit for the service at sea until they have had
months of experience, and become accustomed to sea-sickness. When one
of our first American mail steamers sailed for Europe, no practised
marine engineer could be found to work her engines. They took a
first-class engineer and corps of assistants from one of the North
River packets; but as soon as the ship got to sea, and heavy weather
came on, all the engineers and firemen were taken deadly sick, and for
three days it was constantly expected that the ship would be lost.
It is abundantly evident from all of the testimony, that most of the
mail packets are capable of carrying a handsome armament. Mr. Atherton
says to me in his letter: "Many of our ocean steamers are fit for
naval service of every description; and they are generally fit for all
transport service." The Report of Lord Canning, the British Post
Master General, to which I have referred, was made in 1853, in
obedience to a Treasury Minute issued by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, who directed the Post Master General to form a committee,
and report to both houses, on the propriety of continuing and
extending the mail steam packet system; as there had been suggestions
that the sum expended for the mail service was large. These gentlemen
after a lengthy investigation of several months, the examination of a
great number of witnesses, and the record of their testimony in
shorthand, made their report, accompanied by the evidence in a large
volume. At page 5 of the report, in speaking of the requirements for
naval efficiency, they say: