Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company

“ Large additions to this vast traffic must necessarily flow from the increasing intercourse between North America and the Australian colonies, facilitated as such intercourse is by the powerful lines of steamers already established between the United States and the Isthmus of Panama in the North Atlantic, and between California and Panama in the North Pacific. The augmented line of steamers, also, employed by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company between Valparaiso and Panama, must considerably swell the stream. ”

“ Many years of experience in the management of steamships have enabled the company to design and construct a magnificent fleet of fast cargo liners, having lofty ’tween decks, and fitted with anti-rolling keels, electric light and every modern improvement. Several of these were chartered at an early stage of the war by the British Admiralty, and retained for voyage after voyage as transports. Nine steamers, of an aggregate gross tonnage of 52,000 tons, were requisitioned in this way. ”

“ The White Star fleet at present consists of nineteen ocean steamers, ranging in size from 3,807 to 10,000 tons and upwards. Five of these steamers are employed in the Atlantic weekly mail service, three keep up a monthly line to New Zealand, four ply monthly from San Francisco to Japan and China, the remainder are cargo boats of large carrying capacity. A number of vessels built for this company have been sold to other lines and are still running. The Oceanic, pioneer ship of the line, after a few years in the Atlantic service, was transferred to the company’s trans-Pacific line. ”

“ The Company have thirty-nine vessels of 48,835 tons, and 12,850 horses' power, and run 796,637 annually, at 6s 13/4d per mile. The steamers run the whole service of 796,637 miles annually, at this low rate because much of the service is confined to the Mediterranean, as for example, their line from Southampton to Vigo, O Porto, Lisbon, Cadiz, and Gibraltar; and also that between Marseilles and Malta. This is but like the coasting trade at the utmost, and is not ocean navigation proper. ”

“ Live stock are also carried between New York and Manchester by boats specially adapted to the requirements of the North Atlantic Trade.
All the steamers of the Lamport and Holt fleet are fitted with the most modern appliances for the rapid and effective handling of general cargo. The operations of the Company are varied and extensive and comprise the following regular services:—From Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool to Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, fortnightly. From London and Antwerp to Rio de Janeiro and Santos, every ten days. ”

“ All the steamers engaged in the Liverpool and Glasgow trade prior to 1839 were built of wood, but in that year a new steamship company entered into competition with the existing companies, and placed the Royal Sovereign, an iron steamer, on the station., The immediate result was a heavy drop in passenger and freight rates. Steerage passengers were carried for 1s. each, and boxes and bale goods for 1d. per foot measurement. ”

“ 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 [Pg 101] can run as auxiliary propellers ”

“ One destined for the Pacific Coast of South-America must go to Panama and await the arrival of the English packet, with London letters more recently dated, before it can proceed on to Callao, Lima, or Valparaiso. Letters destined to the West-Indies can go to Havana only, by American steamers; but they must there await the [Pg 30] British line which takes them to St. Thomas, and there be distributed and forwarded to the various islands, the Spanish Main, the Guianas, Venezuela, and New-Granada by some one of the ten different British steam packet lines running semi-monthly from that station. ”

“ Avowedly, no ocean is so well adapted for steam navigation as the Pacific. Except near Cape Horn, and in the higher latitudes to the north-west, on its glassy surface storms are seldom encountered. With their heavy ships, the Spaniards often made voyages from Manilla to Acapulco in sixty-five days, without having once had occasion to take in their light sails. The ulterior consequences, therefore, of a more general introduction of steam power into that new region, connected with a highway across the isthmus of Panama, no one can calculate. ”

“ THE CUNARD STEAMSHIP COMPANY,
LIMITED. It seems incredible that less than three-quarters of a century ago steamers were unknown on the Atlantic. The mail-boats of that date were wretched old Government 10-gun “coffin brigs,” slow and uncertain in their passages. But there were men, even in those days, who dreamed of a time to come when steamers should cross the ocean with the regularity, though not with the speed, of railway trains. Amongst these enthusiasts was Mr. Samuel Cunard, a shipowner of Halifax, Nova Scotia. ”

“ In the North Country, both on the east and west coasts, with a few important exceptions, the cross-channel and over-sea traffic is operated by steamship companies, which, while running in connection with the railway systems of their respective ports, are entirely separate and independent undertakings.
The South Eastern and Chatham Railway Co. has now running between Dover and Calais, the new turbine steamer The Queen, and the fast and large paddle steamers Empress, Victoria, Dover, Calais, Lord Warden, Le Nord, and Le pas de Calais. ”

“ Recognising that very considerable numbers of passengers are willing to sacrifice speed to comfort and safety, the managers of the White Star Line determined to make an innovation by building a twin-screw cargo steamer of exceptional size and power, fitted with accommodation for a limited number of saloon and third-class passengers. The new steamer which was called the Cymric, commenced work in the Liverpool and New York trade in 1898. Her tonnage is 13,096 tons gross. Her passenger accommodation in both classes is excellent, and she has proved a very attractive ship. ”

“ The Oceanic was quickly followed on the Liverpool-New York service by the Baltic, Republic, Adriatic and Celtic, and weekly sailings from both ports were instituted. These steamers were all of the one type, straight stems, four masts, single funnel, and saloon amidships. They proved themselves to be equal in speed and superior in accommodation to any ships then afloat. Four more steamers were added to the fleet in 1873, viz., the Asiatic, Tropic, Gaelic and Belgic. ”

“ 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 4s 6d, per mile. From Suez to Ceylon, Cal [Pg 105] cutta, and Hong Kong, with vessels of 400 to 500 horse power, for 17s, 1d 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 30s per mile. ”

“ She was built to the order of the Liverpool and Australian Steam Navigation Co., the owners of the celebrated Great Britain. Her owners were of opinion that steamers relying entirely upon their engines, could not be worked so economically as vessels with auxiliary steam power, and sailing vessels trusting only to their sails could not be relied upon to make their passages with regularity and despatch, consequently they determined to combine the two motive powers and give their vessel the benefit of both. ”

“ In addition to the bi-weekly service between Liverpool and Aberdeen, Leith, and Dundee, the Royal Steampacket Company run a regular service of steamers between Aberdeen, Newcastle, Hull, and other east coast ports, and Bristol, Cardiff, and Swansea, calling also at Southampton and Plymouth. During the summer months this service embraces a fortnightly trip round the United Kingdom with one of the larger passenger steamers, and this has now become a favourite cruise for summer holiday seekers, occupying as it does about twelve days. ”

“ The routes upon which lines of steam packets can be sustained and made profitable to the owners are comparatively few, when we take into view the infinitely diversified ramifications of trade. Great Britain, with her vast colonial and general commerce, had, in 1848, but fifteen lines in which national or contract vessels were employed, including the home stations, as they are called, or points of connection between the British islands. Nor has the ocean steam packet system hindered, in the slightest degree, her progress in the construction of steam or sailing vessels for the naval service. ”

“ Prior to the introduction of marine steam engines, the United States of America had no inconsiderable share of the world’s ocean traffic. No swifter ships raced with cargoes of tea from China to the Thames than the famous Baltimore clippers. No finer vessels crossed the Atlantic than the celebrated New York Packet Liners. It cannot be supposed that a people so enterprising as the Americans would make no attempt at ocean steam navigation. ”

“ Her principal dimensions were—Length 376 feet, breadth 45 feet 3 inches, depth 31 feet 6 inches. Her gross tonnage was 4,000 tons, and her engines indicated 4,000 H.P., giving a speed of 13·8 knots per hour. In 1853 the Company established (primarily as auxiliaries to their Atlantic service) branch lines between Liverpool and Havre, and Liverpool and the principal ports in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Levant, Bosphorus, and Black Sea. For these branch lines the screw steamers Sydney, Australian, Andes and Alps were built in 1852, followed by the Jura in 1854 and the Etna in 1855. ”

“ Still more recently, the unprecedented rush of adventurous gold-seekers to the Klondike has induced the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to inaugurate another line of steamships to ply between Victoria and Vancouver and ports on the northern Pacific coast. Two very fine Clyde-built steamers have been placed on this route, the Tartar and the Athenian, of 4,425 and 3,882 tons, respectively. These vessels are fitted up in first-class style, with excellent accommodation for large numbers of passengers. ”

“ It has entered into a new contract with the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, a material feature of which is to run a mail line direct from Southampton to St. Thomas, and thence to Chagres and back, twice a month, with steamers of larger capacity and power, and with a proposed speed of from twelve to fourteen miles per hour. For this line, five or six new steamships are, under the contract, to be built, while the old vessels are to form branches from this main line or trunk to other of the routes of this great and extended plan of steam intercourse and letter-carrying ”

“ For upwards of nine years Great Britain had held a monopoly of the transatlantic steamship business. America could and did build sailing vessels that were unsurpassed by those belonging to any other nation; her Baltimore clippers, Boston packets, and New York liners were all of them vessels of the highest class and reputation. But apparently Americans could neither build, nor own ocean steamers that were capable of successfully competing with British owned steamships. ”

“ Co., incorporated, 178; first steamer to India, 179; transport over Suez isthmus, 179; services to India and China, 180; subsidy for Indian mails, 180; Australian service, 180; difficulties on opening of Suez Canal, 182; overland route through Egypt closed, 182; ships, 260-261; increase of size of ships, 291, 293; and Australian trade, 294; acquires Blue Anchor Line, 297 Peninsular Steam Navigation Co., 176-178; becomes the P. & O. Co., 178 Penn, John, and Son, engines by, 226, 233, 260; oscillating engines, 201, 314; number of engines fitted by, 315 ”

“ Instead of sending our letters and passengers direct from Panamá or San Francisco to Honolulu, Hong Kong, Shanghae, Macáo, Calcutta, Ceylón, Bombáy, Madrás, Sydney, Melbourne, Batavia, the Mauritius, and the Gulf of Mozambique, by a short trunk line of our own steamers, and from its terminus only, by the British lines, they now go first to England, as a slavish matter of course, then across the Continent or through the Mediterranean to Egypt, thence by land to the Red Sea, and thence to China and the East-Indies ”

“ The words alone convey what an age we have been living in, and what the international progress in commerce must have been. In 1839 the ocean steamers in the world, if any, could have been counted on one's fingers. In the United Kingdom alone there are now 1597 steam vessels, of nearly 1000 average tonnage, wholly employed in foreign trade. All the greater maritime states have lines of ocean steamers, and there is scarce any part of the world to which goods and passengers are not carried with the speed, regularity, and capacity which steam-power has given to navigation. ”

“ Now, hardly a day passes that does not see several large and powerful steamers leaving the ports of New York and Liverpool to make the same voyages, and their passages are made with such regularity and safety, that travelers can anticipate with confidence the time of their arrival at the termination of their voyage to a day, and can cross with safety and with comparative comfort even amid the storms of winter. Yet all that we to-day see of the extent and the efficiency of steam-navigation has been the work of the present century, and it may well excite our wonder and our admiration. ”