Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post Part 6

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small vessels, provided only they can be filled with cargo; but in some cases in which small paddle vessels have been superseded by large screw vessels, the superior result due to an increased size of hull has been imputed to a superior efficiency of the propeller.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 s.p.a.ce 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 Cla.s.sification," 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 circ.u.mstances 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, ent.i.tled, "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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 pa.s.senger 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-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sages 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sengers. 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 cla.s.s 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 quant.i.ty. 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 a.s.sumption 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 a.s.serted that but for the opportunities which vessels of this cla.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 pa.s.sengers. 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 compet.i.tors 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 compet.i.tion, 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 compet.i.tion 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 compet.i.tion 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 CLa.s.sES 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 quant.i.ty 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 s.p.a.ce not devoted to pa.s.sengers and express freight; and that steamers must be fast to do successful mail and profitable pa.s.senger 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 pa.s.senger 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 ma.s.s 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 const.i.tutions conflicting with this purpose are simply subversive of justice and liberty. If labor is a thing so desirable and so n.o.ble 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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.s, 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 sh.o.r.es, 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 240,000, and for the present twelve years 270,000 per annum. In addition to this she pays 25,000 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 75,000 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 295,000, or $1,475,000, to say nothing of the increased allowance of 75,000 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 compet.i.tion with other countries for this rich and remunerative trade. Yet such is the fact; all of the pet.i.tions 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 n.o.ble 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 pet.i.tioned 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 pet.i.tions 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sumed a magnitude and permanence in eight years which but for the steam mail and pa.s.senger 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 1,200,000 a year. The actual value of goods exported from Southampton alone, last year, (1848-9,) by those steamers is nearly 1,000,000 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 600,000, calculating taxes at 20 per cent., an income of revenue of 120,000 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 3,645,833 annually; but, in 1855, these had reached 8,162,455. 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 a.n.a.lyses, 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 pa.s.senger 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 embarra.s.sed our trade, then we have only to employ the same agent, and, from geographical advantages, we feel a.s.sured that we will soon surpa.s.s her as certainly, and even more effectually, than she has us. She sweeps our seas, and we offer her no resistance or compet.i.tion. 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 compet.i.tion. But Great Britain did not wait for compet.i.tion 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 hara.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.ses. 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, a.s.sume 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 cla.s.ses 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 surpa.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 compet.i.tion for this trade. Our people probably surpa.s.s 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.