voyage." The author speaks feelingly upon these points, for when visiting the shipyards of Boston and Maine, in the winter of 1853-4, he saw, in many of these yards, ships building for British shipowners. The late Donald McKay, of East Boston, for example, had then three great ships on the stocks for a Liverpool firm, and he afterwards built many more, but no British or Canadian-built vessel has ever been admitted to United States registry except by a special Act of Congress. Between 1861 and 1880 the author's ships had often to compete with United States ships in England, Bombay, Calcutta, Rangoon, Hong Kong and Peru, yet when, in 1869, he had a ship in New York, and freights to San Francisco were high, he was not allowed to carry a ton of goods between the two ports; and, although he bought four United States-built ships, he has never been allowed to sell a Canadian-built ship to an American shipowner. Is this generous rivalry?" 66 Again, when a majority of the arbitrators at Geneva decided that Great Britain was liable for 15 million dollars for damages caused by a privateer, which was owned and commanded by American citizens, and which escaped from British surveillance by a discreditable trick, it was promptly paid; but the Honourable T. F. Bayard, who now so worthily represents the United States in London, has frankly admitted that the sum awarded was more than was fairly due, and the New York Evening Post has recently admitted that the surplus is lying in the United States treasury. But when the arbitrators at Paris unanimously decided that the United States had illegally seized a number of Canadian schooners on the high seas, detained them until they were rotten and useless, and immured some of their innocent crews in filthy Alaska dungeons, till one of the poor captains became insane and died from his cruel treatment, the United States Congress refused to pay the small compensation assented to by President Cleveland and his Cabinet; and Senator Morgan declares that not a shilling is due or will be paid! Is that American generosity? There is no 66 bitter hostility "" in Britain to the St. Louis and St. Paul, and Mr. Cramp may rest assured that they will not only receive a generous welcome there, but that if his company can build better or cheaper ships than can be built by British shipbuilders, they will be purchased and registered as British ships without a "special Act" of Parliament. CHAPTER XXXII. CONCLUSION. THE reader of the foregoing pages must have been struck with the marvellous progress made in steam navigation within the comparatively short space of fifty years. The speed of Atlantic steamships has been nearly trebled, or from 8 to 23 knots, and within the last fifteen years it has been nearly doubled; the power of marine engines has been increased from 700 to 30,000 I.H.P.; and the steam pressure in the boilers from 13 to 200 lbs. to the square inch. A pound of coal is now made to do four times the work it once did, and passengers and mails are carried across the Atlantic at the speed of a railway train, without a moment's stoppage. It is now possible for passengers to make a round voyage from London to New York and back in 14 days; they have been carried from London to Bombay in 13 days, and from Southampton to the Cape in 14, while the accommodation afforded has attained a luxury never dreamt of in early days. The philanthropist, however, will ask, "Has all this tended to reduce the loss of life at sea?" The reply must be in the affirmative. Many predicted that increased speed must produce increased loss of life. The record of the past few years does not bear out this opinion. That modern speed is hard upon machinery no one can doubt. The celebrated Persia's engines never made over 17 revolutions per minute, while those of the Paris make 89; but the great compensating fact is found in twin screws, which unquestionably add very much to the safety of all steamships. It has also been found that three cranks tend to materially reduce the liability to fracture of shafts. The figures relating to the loss of life at sea issued annually by the British Board of Trade, when given without careful explanation, are apt to mislead. One great calamity, such as recently happened in India, by the loss of a steamship carrying a large number of pilgrims, all of whom perished, may give the impression that the loss of life at sea is increasing; and the numerous fatal accidents described in this work may create an erroneous impression as to the perils of the sea. A very able English periodical, Engineering, says: "In ten years the number of lives lost has decreased by nearly one-half, and when it is noted that the British fleet has in that period increased from 8.5 to 9.6 million tons, the result is even more favourable. The proportion of lives lost to the total tonnage entering and clearing at our ports has decreased from 4 17 per 100,000 tons in 1880 to 2'06 in 1890. In the case of steamers, the increase in traffic is equal to 43.6 per cent., and yet there is a decrease in the number of lives lost of 28 per cent. In ten years the deaths among masters and seamen from all causes decreased from 23.2 per 1000 employed to 13.1 per 1000." These facts are, to a great extent, confirmed by Sir Thomas Sutherland, the Chairman of the great P. and O. Line, who says: “Though there are fifty thousand more persons afloat than there were fifteen years ago, the absolute loss of life at sea is less than it was in 1879." The Scottish Review says: "In 1890 there were nearly two thousand trips made from New York alone to various European ports, and about 200,000 cabin and 372,000 steerage passengers were carried, all without any accident." The late Thomas Gray, of the Marine Department of the British Board of Trade, perhaps the best authority then living on the subject, stated that in the Union Line to the Cape only one passenger had died in twenty years, and that only four seamen died in three years; that in the P. and O. Line only one seaman had died in their forty vessels in a year, and that during three years not a single passenger had been lost; that the Inman Line had lost no passenger out of a million, and that only eleven seamen had died in three years; and that the Cunard Line had only lost nine seamen in three years. It would be rash to predict what the ship of the future may be like. Great engineers, such as the late Isambard Kingdom Brunel, deem nothing impossible, but they will not stoop to consider the inexorable laws of profitable working. Mr. Brunel built the finest railway in the world, with a 7-foot gauge and 60-ton locomotives; but the directors were afterwards compelled, by considerations which he despised, to reduce the gauge to 4 feet 81⁄2 inches, at enormous expense. He once asked Mr. Lindsay if the Great Eastern would pay. "Perhaps," replied Mr. Lindsay, as a show ship at Brighton she may, but in no other way,” which disgusted Brunel; but, as we have seen, Mr. Lindsay was right. 66 At present the Atlantic "greyhounds," though making a round voyage in 20 days, and carrying an average of 1400 passengers, do not pay. Some of them burn over 5000 tons of coal per voyage, so that the limit of profitable size and power has been reached. The future success of such boats would seem to depend more on economy in fuel than in any increase in size or power. When the cost of electricity is materially reduced we shall probably see it replace coal altogether. In the meantime the consumption of coal is being gradually reduced. Messrs. John Brown & Co., of Sheffield, have introduced a system of induced draught, by which it is said that the number of boilers necessary to generate steam enough for 30,000 I.H.P. may be reduced to little more than one-half.1 Americans have introduced the system of triple screws in two of their warships, and these will probably be adopted in fast merchant ships. What has already been done in the way of economy in freight boats of moderate speed may be seen by the recorded feat of the Tekoa, belonging to the New Zealand Shipping Company. She is a boat of 4050 tons gross, and 450 H.P. with a dead weight capacity of 6250 tons, and she recently ran from Teneriffe to Auckland, New Zealand (12,059 knots), at an average rate of 10 knots an hour, with a daily consumption of only 21 tons of coal. Thus she carried a ton of goods a mile with an average expenditure of half an ounce of coal. Carrying capacity, too, has been vastly increased in two turret boats of a novel design, built by Messrs. William Doxford & Sons, of Sunderland. The Turret, of 1265 tons net register, carries 3200 tons of coal, and her measurement capacity is 157,500 cubic feet, or nearly 4000 tons. The other, the Turret Age, of 1362 tons net register, carries 3600 tons of coal, or 160 per cent. over her net register tonnage; the old-fashioned sailing ships carried about 40 per cent. The work done ashore is almost equally marvellous; thus we learn that the steamship Gladiolus, with 2240 tons of cargo (wheat and flour), commenced discharging in Liverpool early one Monday morning, and finished at 2.45 P.M. the same day ; and Mr. Maginnis says: "It is no uncommon thing to discharge 4000 tons of inward cargo, and load 3000 tons of outward cargo, and also put on board 2000 tons of coal, in about two working days.": 1 The Atlantic Ferry.' Contrast this with the old style of things, when charterparties stipulated that sailing ships should be discharged at the rate of one keel of coals (21 tons), or one and a half keels (31), tons) per working day! There is, however, just now a craze among passengers for speed, which amounts to a mild form of insanity. There is no real necessity for it, now that we have so many cables working; and except in a very few cases, a longer sea passage is desirable, both on the score of health and enjoyment. |