Shipping company

“ We have held that shipping instructions, given to a freight conductor on a common carrier prior to any movement, put a car into interstate commerce [12] when the instructions were for shipment to an out-of-state destination after a preliminary transit between points in the state of loading. When a shipper delivers his commodity to a common carrier with instructions for billing by such carrier without purposeful delay via another or other common carriers to an out-of-state destination, we think interstate commerce has begun. ”

“ Many of the largest ocean-going ships either belonged to, or were hired by, these corporations, and owners who had entered into the prevalent spirit of shipbuilding felt that they had a right to have their vessels hired by the companies. Olyff Burre, the speculative owner before mentioned, petitioned the Council in 1579 to the effect that he had obtained a living for forty years ‘cheefely by the maynteyninge of shippinge and the navygacon,’ that he now had a number of vessels unemployed, and that he trusted they would order the Spanish Company to hire his ships. ”

“ The General Commercial Company, Limited, doing business as commission merchant and exporting concern at New York, in May, 1918, old 800 barrels of rosin c. i. f. to the respondent, a Brazilian corporation. and procured a written freight reservation or agreement from the agents of the schooner St. ”

“ The vast amount of shipping, now being built to class in Lloyd’s Register, is doubtless due chiefly to the confidence which the British shipping community repose in the Society’s present rules for the building of vessels, and the manner in which they are administered. ”

“ This has brought out a new department of sea-labor, unknown, as a class, a century ago—the business of carrying goods which the owners of the vessels have no property in. In London, New York, Hamburg, and all other seaboard cities of this and other countries, the great majority of the160 shipping is owned, not by the merchants of the city, but by “transportation companies,” who agree to carry cargoes at a certain rate.
THE SALOON OF A SAILING PACKET-SHIP, ABOUT 1840. ”

“ Those who have the command of the Sea Trade, may Work at easier Freight with more profit, than others at greater: for as Cloth must be cheaper made, when one Cards, another Spins, another Weaves, another Draws, another Dresses, another Presses and Packs; than when all the Operations above-mentioned, were clumsily performed by the same hand; so those who command the Trade of Shipping, can build long slight Ships for carrying Masts, Fir-Timber, Boards, Balks, &c. ”

“ The primary reason for the existence of a merchant ship is, of course, her ability to pay her way and earn money for her owners. When a ship ceases to be able to do this, the sooner she is converted into a hulk or broken up, the better. So the true measure of a nation's merchant marine is its earning capacity, not merely the number or tonnage of its ships; and judged by this standard, the merchant marine of the United States was at this time far in advance of the merchant shipping of the whole British Empire. ”

“ For our people were then essentially a maritime people. Their greatest single manufacturing industry was ship-building. The fisheries—whale, herring, and cod—employed thousands of their men and supported more than one considerable town. The markets for their products lay beyond seas, and for their commerce an undisputed right to the peaceful passage of the Page 25ocean was necessary. Yet England and France, prosecuting their own quarrel, fairly ground American shipping as between two millstones. ”

“ The ship will, however, sooner or later require a higher rate of freight for ports of slow despatch, and this increased expense in transport will undoubtedly operate in favour of rival ports. For the ports themselves are but stepping-stones to or from a market or industrial centre, and the market will always select the cheapest route for its trade. With the increase of populations in the Old World and the development of new countries, the transport of emigrants and of travellers for business and for pleasure became a highly important and lucrative source of employment for steam shipping. ”

“ I use the word “vain” because it is clear, if the experience of other nations, or the experience of your own nation is of any value, that all the money paid to “encourage shipping” is actually lost, for French ships, with all this protection, do not increase at the same rate as other nations, or at the same rates in the branches of your own trade, where they are guarded with unusual care, as they do in those branches where they are thrown into competition with the shipping of other countries. ”

“ No, certainly; for, not to insist upon the numberless people that are employed and subsisted by shipping and navigation, we gain much more by our shipping than the above-mentioned sums from other countries with which we trade ”

“ And while our people have been large gainers by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, an Act which that year came into operation, our Shipowners have been greatly benefited, for in 1860 we owned 5,710,968 tons of shipping, showing an increase in ten years of Free-trade nearly as great as the increase during thirty-five years of Protection.
But the increase in the amount of business carried on in British ships to and from the ports of Great Britain is even more remarkable. ”

“ Or they might be welded into one great national institution directly controlled by all the various branches of the shipping community in harmony with their sentiments, and alive to the wants and necessities always arising through the growth and development of trade and commerce.
Individuals may do wrong, and, though it may be for their interests to have a good sound ship, there is no denying the fact that ships are sent to sea which [Pg 534] are not seaworthy; but corporations and associations cannot do wrong with the same impunity. ”

“ There are no less than thirty steamships now running between New York and different ports in Europe. These are regular steamers carrying passengers and merchandise, beside which there are a number of transient ones that carry cargo only. But ten of them are American vessels, while the Boston, Portland, and Philadelphia lines are entirely European. The Atlantic trade is departing from us, and unless our shipping merchants exhibit more practical wisdom and enterprise they will ultimately be vanished in this contest. ”

“ The Merchant Marine.
That ‘merchantmen dare hardly sail’ was scarcely a condition of things conducive to commercial enterprise. Piracy was becoming a more serious drawback than formerly because ships were bigger and more costly, the network of commerce more sensitive and complex, and losses could no longer be recouped by successful privateering on a small scale. Little can be said of the merchant shipping of these years, as the returns of available ships, so frequently occurring among the Elizabethan papers, are entirely absent for this period. ”

“ From the market to the vicinity of Bienville-street, lies an extensive tier of shipping, often "six deep," discharging and receiving cargo, or waiting for freight. The next link of the huge chain is usually occupied by Spanish and French coasting vessels,—traders to Mexico, Texas, Florida, &c. These are usually polaccas, schooners, and other small craft—and particularly black, rakish craft, some of them are in appearance. ”

“ To quote the most recent example, about the middle of last century the United States of America fought a well-contested struggle with us for the carrying trade of the world. Shortly after the abolition of the navigation laws, the competition was very severe, and United States ships had obtained almost exclusive possession of the China trade, and of the trade between Europe and North America, and in the year3 1850 the total tonnage of the shipping of the States was 3,535,434, against 4,232,960 tons owned by Great Britain. ”

“ A lens lantern, hanging from the arm of a post eight or ten feet high, and kept lighted by some neighboring farmer at a cost of $160 a year, lacks the romantic quality of a lighthouse towering above a hungry sea, but it is because there are nearly two thousand such lights on our shallow and crooked rivers that we have an interior shipping doing a carrying trade of millions a year, and giving employment to thousands of men.
Chief among the sailors' safeguards is the service performed by the United States revenue cutters. ”

“ If the Norman Conquest gave the first great impulse to English over-sea trade, the events of the close of the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries may be held to mark the second important era in the development of merchant shipping by the opening up of fresh markets. ”

“ Your coasting trade is confined strictly to French vessels. The vessels of all other nations are actually prohibited from entering it. In that trade there were entered and cleared in 1850, 2,447,556 tons of shipping. In 1860, 2,917,823 tons were entered and cleared. In your trade with the United Kingdom your Shipowners have had to contend on equal terms with the owners of British shipping, yet what are the results? ”

“ We are often put to great loss, and cannot execute orders, by not getting them up in sufficient time. If you lose the opportunity of shipping by a vessel that sails only once a year from a port you lose the order. I have experienced considerable difficulty by that. The correspondent says, if you can ship my goods by such a vessel, send me the order; and if you cannot get them ready you lose in the trade.
9. Do you consider the canal and waggon communication sufficient to enable the merchants to execute their orders with promptitude and certainty? ”

“ He is not even to be presumed the owner, but may as probably be a shipping agent merely, who has fully executed all his authority by making the shipment. He has no funds for the purpose of these charges. He does not demand back the goods, but lets them go forward to their original destination on the old freight contract; they arrive in safety at New York. There is the place of destination, reached by the cargo. There is the proper place, and only proper place, of valuing the vessel, an American registered ship. The freight being lost, is a freight to the home port of destination. ”

“ It must be a matter of deep interest to all present, because you are all directly or indirectly interested in the shipping trade, to know whether such a ship as the Great Eastern is, or is not, likely to answer in a commercial point of view, and I venture on this topic because I have heard strong opinions expressed to the effect that, commercially, she will be a great triumph. ”

“ When a ship became worn out by age, accident or inability, an advertisement was published, describing the size of the ship required, inviting tenders and specifying the rate of freight to be paid for six voyages, the ship to be commanded by the captain of the ship whose bottom was worn out. In December of the following year it was resolved that ships of 1400 tons were the most suitable for the Company’s trade to China, but that these ships should be tendered at 1200 tons only. ”

“ So rapid indeed was their progress, that out of the million tons of sea-going vessels owned in the United States at the commencement of this century, no less than seven hundred and twenty thousand were employed in their trade with foreign nations. ”

“ On referring to the Customs’ entries and clearances, it will be found that out of the 5,000,000 tons of British shipping annually so entered, 2,000,000 came from our own colonies and dependencies, but that no less than 3,000,000 of British shipping are entered from foreign countries (“Hear, hear!” and confusion) , thus proving that our trade with foreign countries is much more valuable to us than the trade with our own possessions (cries of “Question!”) ”

“ This important section of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854 requires all sea-going vessels to be provided with a certain number of boats in proportion to their tonnage and the trade in which they are engaged. It lays down rules as to the meeting and passing of ships at sea, and the use of lights and fog-signals—a regulation of daily increasing importance and more completely carried [Pg 312] out in 1863, from the vast number of vessels now traversing the ocean, and especially the English and other great channels of commerce. ”

“ In a word, while the bulky articles which require ships for their conveyance to distant parts of the world have enormously increased, the shipping of the world has been comparatively stationary during the past year, and the many losses and disasters at sea during 1860 have tended materially to diminish the already scanty supply of shipping necessary to conduct the oversea trade of the world. ”

“ TRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT PASSAGE TO FRANCE V MANNING
SEA-LABOUR cannot be likened to employment on shore. Once signed and boarded and to sea, there can be no dismissal and replacement of the men such as may be seen any morning at the street gates of a workshop or shipyard. Good or bad, we are bound as shipmates for a voyage. Ordinary laws and regulations cannot reach us in our sailing; we are given the Merchant Shipping Act for our guidance, the longest and wordiest Act on the Statute Book, a measure that presupposes a discipline that no longer exists. ”

“ There appear to be now employed in these questionable operations, no less than 117 Government surveyors, “shipwrights,” and “engineers,” stationed at different ports in the United Kingdom, twelve of whom are retired officers of the Royal Navy, besides a good many so-called “shipwrights,” who can have very little knowledge of the construction of merchant ships or of their requirements. ”