Shipping line

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ores of every description, on an oversea voyage, should be stowed in a boxed hold, or on platforms in the centre of the ship, thoroughly blocked from the sides. In a word, the proper stowage of a ship, whether as regards her form or the nature of her cargo, is a science which has not been sufficiently studied.
[304] We must ever remember that although, since we relieved our Shipowners of all the restrictions to which they were subjected by the Navigation Laws, they have advanced above all other nations, the shipping of many of those nations are now running them a very close race. ”

“ To such doubters, before the war, there was always ready the routine reply that a navy protected commerce; and American shipping, then the second in the world, literally whitened every sea with its snowy cotton sails, a distinctive mark at that time of American merchant shipping. In my first long voyage, in 1859, from Philadelphia to Brazil, it was no rare occurrence to be becalmed in the doldrums in company with two or three of these beautiful semi-clipper vessels, their low black hulls contrasting vividly with the tall pyramids of dazzling canvas which rose above them. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ This measure, too, is calculated expressly to take our own carriage from us and give the equivalent to other nations: for it is well known, that the shipping of France is not equal to the carriage of their whole commerce; but the freight in other branches of navigation being on an equal footing with only forty livres the hogshead, in ours, and this new arrangement giving them sixty-two livres ten sols the hogshead, in addition to their freight, that is to say, one hundred and two livres ten sols, instead of forty livres, their vessels will leave every other branch of business to fill up this. ”

“ But that the great ships will decay, doth not necessarily follow; for the main trade of all the white cloth, and much of other kind, is shipped from the Port of London, and will be still, it being the fittest Port of the kingdom for Germanie and the Low Countries, where the Merchant Adventurers' trade only lieth; who shall have little cause to alter their shipping. Then the Levent Sea, Muscovy, and East Indies, whither we trade with great ships, the employing of them will be still requisite in the merchants' discretion ”

“ 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. ”

“ I turn the more cosily amid my blankets.)
Oh yes! He would have something to growl at, that young man who asked if the 'Skipp-ah' was aboard, and said he "was deshed if he could see what we hed to complain of."
He would learn, painfully, that a ship, snugly moored in the south-east corner of the Queen's Dock (stern-on to a telephone call-box) , and the same craft, labouring in the teeth of a Cape Horn gale, present some points of difference; that it is a far cry from 58° South to the Clyde Repair Works, and that the business of shipping is not entirely a matter of ledgers. ”

“ Extension of American shipping.—The colonists were as proficient in the sailing as in the building of ships, and carried on a large part of the ocean traffic which served the needs of American commerce. In the first year of the national government considerably more than half of the tonnage entering the ports of the United States from foreign countries was American, and English ships were the only serious competitors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was little easing of speed; with only a few hours of winter daylight to work in, shipping was being driven at its utmost power to make the most of the precious time. 'All out,' stoking up and setting a stiff smoke-screen over the seascape, we thinned out to a more comfortable formation, while the smaller craft, taking advantage of the rising tide, cut the inner angles of the channel to keep apace. ”

“ All other kinds of goods imported and exported come and go without let or hindrance. The masters of vessels report on arrival, and before departure, the approximate quantity of cargo carried, and, to a certain extent, its nature. But the returns cannot be regarded as in any way even an approximation of the truth, and the value of the goods I cannot attempt to estimate. The Annual Reports of the Harbour Master give very exhaustive details of the origin and destination of the cargoes, as of the shipping using the port, and many other matters of interest. ”

“ As to the employment of sailing ships, there can at the present day be seen at most large shipping ports a number of sailing ships of various types and sizes. Some of the largest ships are employed in the jute trade of India, the grain trade of California, British Columbia, &c., the nickel ore trade from New Caledonia and the nitrate trade of Chile. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the three years after 1789 the merchant shipping registered for the foreign trade increased from 123,893 tons to 411,438 tons, presaging a growth without parallel in the history of the commercial world. Foreign ships were almost entirely driven out of American ports, and ninety-one per cent of imports and eighty-six per cent of exports were conveyed in vessels built and manned by Americans. Before Congress intervened, English merchantmen had controlled three-fourths of our commerce overseas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ British vessels would accordingly bring goods from England to America, take a freight in one of the ports of the United States to the British colonies, where American vessels are not admitted, and thence a third, home, making three freights in one voyage; so that foreigners would crowd their wharves, underbid their freight, monopolize their markets, and “leave American vessels idly to rot in their docks.” ”

“ If one steamship now performs the work of at least three sailing vessels, each of equal capacity to the steamer, then, considering the dilatory movements of ancient vessels, it will not be an exaggerated estimate to allow six thousand tons of shipping as necessary to conduct the same amount of transport as one steamship of a thousand tons would now perform. ”

“ In proportion as more vessels call for supplies, these will be furnished more abundantly and better, since private enterprise will be sure to meet the demand which the greater resort of shipping to the port will create. ”

“ Though the entries and clearances of British ships engaged in trade between the United Kingdom and her colonies, and foreign countries, could at both periods be obtained with accuracy, there were no certain returns of the amount of tonnage and of the number of men engaged in the Coasting trade, as the Customs did not take any notice of vessels sailing in ballast or with cargoes of a certain description. ”

“ Freights from New York to California, which, at first, were exorbitantly high, still averaged somewhere about 5l. per ton: thence, these ships proceeded to China, and there, were able to load cargoes of tea and other produce direct for London or New York, thus securing on the round voyage from 8l. to 10l. per ton freight, while our ships, engaged in the direct trade between London and China, a voyage nearly as long, could only earn out and home little more than half that rate per ton. ”

“ Shipping may be divided into two classes, both of which are of national importance. The liners, which comprise fixed services of passenger and cargo [Pg 75] ships. These services must be maintained, and new tonnage built at whatever cost to replace lost ships. The other class is our cargo ships. Many of these conduct regular services; others are what are known as “tramps,” and go where the best freights offer. It is the owners of the tramp steamers who have realised large profits by selling their ships. ”

“ 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!”) ”