Part 5 (1/2)
Solid Contents, 2,688,000 --------- = 8 to 1. Increase as the cubes.
Solid Contents, 336,000
Thus, the mids.h.i.+p resistance has increased as four to one, or as the square, while the solid contents, representing the tonnage, have increased as eight to one, or as the cube. It is evident that the s.h.i.+p has but four times the mid-section resistance, while she has eight times the carrying capacity. Therefore the engine power, and the coal and weight necessary to propel a s.h.i.+p of twice the lineal dimensions, or eight times the capacity, would have to be only four times that of the smaller vessel, speaking in general terms; and as a consequence, the price of freight, considering the vessels to run at equal speed, would be but half as much in the larger as in the smaller vessel.
The attempt has been made to seize the evident advantages thus offered by increasing the size of the hull, until our clippers now reach an enormous size, and our steamers are stopping but little short of 30,000 tons. The splendid steamer ”Leviathan” was built on this idea, and must prove a splendid triumph in comparative cheapness if she can only get business so as to run full, and keep herself constantly employed in her legitimate business, running. But it is hardly possible that she should be always filled with either freight or pa.s.sengers. Some of our large clipper s.h.i.+ps have experienced this difficulty. The time necessary to load and unload is too great for short routes, although they are well calculated for long pa.s.sages. If one of these large steamers fail to get plenty of business the losses become exceedingly severe. The prime cost is immense; the interest on the capital and the insurance are very large; and the current expenses are even beyond those necessary for the government of some cities.
These hazards all taken together more than neutralize the benefits which arise from extra size and extra proportional cheapness; so that notwithstanding all of the hopes which some have entertained for the cheapening of transport in this way, they are probably doomed to disappointment in the end; and ocean steaming continues as expensive as ever, and is growing even more expensive than it has ever been known since its first introduction. (_See Coal Tables, pp. 71 and 75._)
It is clear that, notwithstanding all of the advantages to be gained from increased size, steamers can not support themselves upon the ocean. Let us examine further the case of such a s.h.i.+p as the ”Leviathan.” I can not see that there is any normal trade in which she can run successfully. She may transport 6,000 tons of measurement goods to Australia; but it will be at the expense of fourteen to sixteen thousand tons of coals if the pa.s.sage is made in fair time. If not, sailing vessels will subserve all purposes except travel quite as well. And certainly there is no cla.s.s of freight for Australia or any other portion of the world, which will pay such an enormous coal-bill, and so many other expenses, and the interest and insurance on three and a half to four millions of dollars, just to save a few days in so long a voyage. And if the steamer is to do a freighting as well as pa.s.senger business, then a long voyage is essential to her.
Running is the legitimate business of a steamer. Her costly engines are put in her for locomotion. Her large corps of engineers, firemen, and coal-pa.s.sers, are employed for running her, and are of no use when she is lying still, although necessarily on full pay. Her condition is abnormal and unnatural every day that she is lying at the docks, and taking or discharging freight; and hence, every day that she is thus employed she is not performing her proper functions. A sailing s.h.i.+p can better afford to lie still for weeks and await a freight, or slowly receive or discharge cargo; as she must pay only the interest on her investment, her dockage, the captain, and watchmen, and perhaps her depreciation. The prime investment is much less. She has no costly engines and boilers. So are her current expenses. She has none of the costly _employees_ that I have named, and who can never leave a steamer for a day. But eternal motion, flush freights, flush business, good prices, and constant employment, are everywhere essential to the steamer.
Suppose the ”Leviathan” steamer running between Liverpool and New-York. She would be occupied ten days at least in receiving her freight, ten days in running and making port or docks, and ten days in discharging. Then, she would be employed only one third of her time in the business for which she was constructed, running; while during two thirds of it she would be acting simply as a pier or dock, over which freight would be handled. Now, with her costly engines, and costly and necessarily idle _employees_, she can not afford to be a dock; neither can she afford to lie still so long. Nor can she on such conditions get the freight necessary to her support. The community on neither side of the water would wish fifteen thousand tons of any cla.s.s of freights which she could transport dumped down upon the docks at one time. They wish it to arrive a little and a little every day, as it is wanted, just enough to supply the market; and will not lie out of the money which they pay for it, and have it nearly a month in market before they need it, just to have it come on the ”Leviathan.” It must come along in small lots, just as they need it, and it must be s.h.i.+pped the day that it is bought, and delivered as soon as the s.h.i.+p is in, without being the last lot of fifteen thousand tons, and without keeping the owners so long out of their money. Suppose that A. puts the first lot of freight in at London: he will be the last to receive, it in New-York. A smaller steamer taking another lot two days after, will deliver it before the large s.h.i.+p gets half way over. Or, again, the small steamer may leave London with it when the large steamer has nearly arrived at New-York, and deliver the lot here to the owner in advance. Beside not wis.h.i.+ng so large a lot at once, they do not wish it all in one place. The double advantage of a great number of small vessels is, that they bring cargo along as it is wanted, and at the same time distribute it at all of the hundreds of large and small ports, without first delivering it at some great mammoth terminus, and then res.h.i.+pping and distributing it to its final destination.
A gentleman, who is a prominent statesman, recently seriously advised me not to think of establis.h.i.+ng a line of mail steamers between the United States and Brazil, for the accommodation of the hundreds of sailing vessels engaged in that trade, but to get up a mammoth company and run five or six thirty thousand ton steamers, like the Leviathan, between Norfolk and Rio de Janeiro. He said that the increased size of the steamer would enable me to carry freight cheaper than sailing vessels. The reasoning was neither very clear nor convincing to me on behalf of the mysterious capacities which he attributed to large steamers. I suggested that, in the first place, there was no cargo pa.s.sing either way between the United States and Brazil which could afford to pay steam transportation under any circ.u.mstances; that so large a cargo could never be obtained at once in Rio de Janeiro or elsewhere; that the merchants of this country did not wish it all landed at one place; that it would cost as much to remove it from Norfolk to the place of consumption, as it would from Rio de Janeiro to its final destination; that they did not wish it delivered all at once, but in small lots at a time, and distributed where it was needed; and that, even if it were at all practicable, which no business man could for a moment believe, the people would not be willing to have a fruitful field of industry in s.h.i.+pping occupied by some great overgrown company, with a great coffee monopoly, which would surely follow. Too much has been expected of large s.h.i.+ps. The clipper ”Great Republic” is not freighted half of her time. The ”Leviathan” can not pay in freighting unless she runs to Australia and the East-Indies, and runs slowly, on very little coal. She may do very well with a voluntary cargo, which will load and unload itself in a hurry, such as a cargo of emigrants, and not steaming at too a high a speed. But it would require a dozen steamers as tenders to bring these emigrants from Ireland, Bremen, Havre, Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and other European cities, to her central depot in England. She would, however, become a most useful if not indispensable transport vessel for the British Government.
If the large cla.s.s of steamers can not live on their own receipts, much less can the small. An adequate speed for the mails leaves no available s.p.a.ce for cargo. The s.h.i.+p may carry two or three hundred tons of freight; but it pays perhaps but little more than the handling and the extra coal necessary to transport its extra weight. As a general thing, it may be safely said that when a vessel is well adapted to the mails and pa.s.sengers she is filled with her own power, that is, with heavy engines, large boilers, and a large quant.i.ty of fuel, as also with her provisions and baggage. We have already seen how the size and weight of engines and boilers must increase, as well as the bulk and cost of the fuel, to gain a little speed. But it is not generally known how large a quant.i.ty of consumable stores and baggage go in a well-supported mail packet. The greater the postal efficiency of a steamer the less is it able to carry freight; and the time will doubtless soon come when the fast mail packets will take nothing except a few express packages. The Persia now takes scarcely any freight, and the Vanderbilt can not think of doing it when she makes fast trips. It is very probable that the whole system of the ocean will be materially changed; and that while clippers and slow propellers carry the fine freights, fast vessels filled with their own power will carry the mails and pa.s.sengers. And in doing this, they can not, of course, support themselves; neither will they conflict with private enterprise in freight transport. It is now the case to a large extent on most of our American lines.
While the ocean mail steamer must be fast and costly, for the better acceleration of correspondence and the accommodation of pa.s.sengers, she must also go at the appointed hour, whether she is repaired or not, and wholly irrespective of her freight and pa.s.senger list. There must be no delays for a lot of freight, or for a company of fifty pa.s.sengers who have been delayed by the train. She has the mails, and must go at the hour appointed, whatever it may cost the company, and however large a lot of costly stores may have to be thrown away. This punctuality, while it is the means of securing small lots of freight, prevents also the accommodation of the s.h.i.+p's day of sailing to arrangements which might otherwise be profitable. This punctuality in sailing always necessitates large extra expense in repairs. It frequently happens that companies of men work through the nights and on Sundays; getting much increased prices for such untimely labor, and being far less efficient in the night than in the day. If the steamer has had a long pa.s.sage from whatever causes, she discharges whatever she has and takes in her coal in a hurried and costly way, frequently at fifty per cent. advance on the cost necessary for it if she had ample time. The only means of avoiding these exigencies is by having spare s.h.i.+ps, which cost as much as any others, but which add nothing whatsoever to the company's income. It may be safe to say that in every mail company it is necessary to have one spare, and consequently unproductive, s.h.i.+p for every three engaged in active service. This thirty-three per cent. additional outlay would not be necessary except on a mail line, where punctuality was positively demanded. Yet, it is one of the heavy items of expense to be incurred by every company carrying the mails, and with which they can not in any wise dispense, however well their s.h.i.+ps may be built. The ”Pacific Mail Steams.h.i.+p Company” in running their semi-monthly line from Panama to California and Oregon, keep constantly at their docks eight unemployed steamers and one tow-boat, ready for all exigencies and accidents, and could keep their mails going if nearly their whole moving fleet should be sunk at once. No wonder that they have never missed a single trip, or lost a single pa.s.senger by marine accident since they first started in 1850. But there is another cla.s.s of costs in running ocean steamers, which amount to large sums in the aggregate, and of which the people are generally wholly ignorant. I allude to the items, and what may be called ”odds and ends.” It is easily imaginable that a company has to pay only the bills for wages, for fuel, and for provisions, and that then the cash-drawer may be locked for the voyage. Indeed, it is difficult for those accustomed to the marine steam service to sit down and enumerate by memory in one day the thousand little treasury leaks, the many wastages, the formidable bill of extras, and the items which are necessary to keep every thing in its place, and to pay every body for what he does. The oil-bill of a large steamer would be astonis.h.i.+ng to a novice, until he saw the urns and oil-cans which cling to every journal, and jet a constant lubricating stream. The tools employed about a steamer are legion in number, and cost cash. We hear a couple of cannon fired two or three times as we enter and leave port, or pa.s.s a steamer upon the ocean, and consider it all very fine and inspiring; but we do not reflect that the guns cost money, and that pound after pound of powder is not given to the company by the Government or the public. The steamer carries many fine flags and signals, which cost cash. An anchor with the chain is lost; another costs cash. Heavy weather may be on, and it takes some hours to get into the dock. The extra coal and the tow-boat cost cash. The wheel-house is torn to pieces against the corner of the pier, and the bulwarks are carried away by heavy seas; but no one will repair the damage for any thing short of cash. A large number of lights are by law required to be kept burning on the wheel-houses and in the rigging all night; but no one reflects that it took money first to purchase them, and a constant outlay to keep them trimmed and burning. People suppose that the captain, or steward, or some body else can take a match and set the lamp off, and have it burn very nicely; but there are only a few who know that it takes one man all of his time to clean, fill, adjust, light, and keep these lamps going, as well as have them extinguished at the proper time.
I saw to-day a case in point as regards accidental expenses. The splendid steams.h.i.+p Adriatic sailed at 12. The wind was very high from the south, and almost blowing a gale. She was lying on the southern side of the dock, while the Atlantic was lying with her stern at the end of the dock, near where the Adriatic had to pa.s.s in going out. At the moment of starting, three strong tow-boats were attached to her bow, and endeavored as she went out to draw her head against the wind, down stream. But they proved insufficient to the task. The vessel crushed down the corner of the dock, ran into the Atlantic, and carried away her stern bulwarks, crushed one of her own large and costly iron life-boats, and damaged one of her wheel-houses. Now, who of the two hundred thousand spectators that lined the docks, would pay the two thousand dollars for the life-boat, a thousand for repairing the dock and vessels, and the bill for the three tug-boats for two hours each?
Moreover, we see a pilot get on the steamer at New-York, another at Southampton, and a third at Havre; but we seldom reflect that the steamer has to pay a large price to each one of them, both going and coming. Take the coasting steamers, running between New-York and Savannah, or Charleston. It appears singular that the New-York pilot goes all the way to Savannah, that the Savannah pilot comes all the way to New-York, and that the steamer pays for both of these men all the time, and feeds them on board all of the time. Yet it is so. Such is the law; and it amounts to a good many thousands during the year.
And all this, the company must pay, as a part of those items which take cash, but for which the company never gets any credit from the public or the Government. Whenever a little accident occurs to the steamer, it must be towed a few miles at a high price by a tug-boat.
Whenever the Government or friends and visitors come on board, they expect to be liberally entertained; yet the company must pay for it, or be considered mean and unworthy of the Government's patronage. Each s.h.i.+p must have an experienced surgeon, whose wages must be paid like those of other persons employed, and an apothecary's room and outfit.
The s.h.i.+p must be painted and varnished, and overhauled at every trip; the upholstering and furnis.h.i.+ng must be often renewed; stolen articles must be replaced; and the breakages of table-wares constantly renewed.
All of this costs cash.
The steamer also has to pay light dues and port charges wherever she goes. Many of these are exorbitant and unreasonable. In Havre the ”Fulton” and ”Arago” must pay nearly twenty-four hundred dollars each on every departure, or they will not be permitted to leave the docks.
This is no small item for each steamer on every pa.s.sage that she makes. At New-York she pays wharf.a.ge again. It is not so high, but it is a large item, and requires the cash. Again, there is the great sh.o.r.e establishment which every steam company must maintain. Large docks, and warehouses, and coaling arrangements, staging, watchmen, porters, and messengers, and a sh.o.r.e-captain equal to those on board, must all be maintained. The Havre Company pays to the city $4,000 per year for its dock, $1,200 for its annual repairs, and also for sheds, fixtures, etc., extra. They keep also two watchmen at $40 each per month, and other persons in the dock service. The Collins Company have a necessarily very costly dock both in New-York and Liverpool. That in New-York would rent for $15,000 per annum. The one in Liverpool is far more costly. On each they keep a large number of men, with watchmen, gatekeepers, runners, porters, and clerks, and always keep an office open. Beside this, is the whole paraphernalia of the office of the company. There must be offices, clerks, bookkeepers, porters, runners, etc.; a president, treasurer, and secretary; an attorney, agents, and agencies; and newspaper advertising, and a hundred little things which no man can mention. I do not pretend to be able to give an adequate conception of the innumerable items which so swell the large actual working expenses of regularly running steamers. Even the charities of a decently managed company are large. Firemen and engineers become disabled and must be supported; or they are killed in the service of the s.h.i.+p, leaving families which no decent company can disregard. The amount which the West-India Royal Mail Company pays in this way, and which our n.o.ble American lines advance to the deserving, are beyond all conception of the mere theorist.
There is another source of loss which prevents, mail packets especially, from paying their expenses on their freight and pa.s.senger earnings. The table on all of our steams.h.i.+ps has become exceedingly expensive, as it has in our hotels. Perhaps there is more necessity for it on steamers than in the hotels, as pa.s.sengers are generally sea-sick, and need every delicacy of life to keep them up. The supplies which our fine mail packets carry for this purpose are of almost incredible extent and costliness. No vegetable, fruit, game, or other rarity that can be kept fifteen days in large ma.s.ses of ice, is neglected; so that the table of every steamer is necessarily both luxurious and expensive. Indeed, it has become so much so, and the price of pa.s.sage fare has been reduced so low on all of the prominent lines, that as a general rule the steamers are not now making much clear money on their pa.s.sengers. The expense of keeping pa.s.sengers was not half so great six years ago, as it is now; and there appears to be no safe means of permanent retrenchment. Nothing has been said of Insurance. This is a most costly item. The Havre Company pay on their two s.h.i.+ps, which are worth about $900,000, nine and a half per cent.
per annum; and Mr. Collins pays on his three s.h.i.+ps, which are worth about $2,200,000, nine per cent. per annum. On the Havre steamers this amounts to $85,500 per year, which is nearly as much as the mail pay; and on the Collins, to $198,000 per annum. And these are among what we call the items of mail steams.h.i.+p expenditure. I do not know the sums paid by the United States Mail, or by the Pacific Mail Companies.
I will here give the views of Messrs. Murray and Atherton on the cost of steam, as they replied to letters of inquiry, which I addressed them Sept. 14, 1857. Mr. Murray says in answer to
_Query 2_. ”It is certainly my impression that ocean steamers of sufficient speed to carry the mails with any thing like regularity, will not pay upon any route with which I am acquainted, without a.s.sistance from Government.”
_Query 5_: Can Parliament do better in economy than in her present mail contracts, all things considered? Mr. Murray replies:
”I do not see how Parliament can avoid paying the large subsidies she does for the mail contracts under present circ.u.mstances.”
_Query 4_: Is the steams.h.i.+p stock of Great Britain, subsidized or unsubsidized, paying stock, and is there much disposition among capitalists to invest, even in the stock of subsidized companies? He replies:
”I do not think the steams.h.i.+p stock of Great Britain to be in a very nouris.h.i.+ng condition: in fact, I know of only one company (the Peninsular and Oriental) in which I should like to invest money.”
Mr. Atherton replies to a query regarding the cost of running steamers as follows:
”As to whether the effective performance of high speed mail service is compatible with ordinary mercantile service without government subsidy, I am of opinion that the mutual relation of Speed and Cost in connection with long sea-voyages has never yet been duly appreciated by owners, managers, or agents in charge of steam s.h.i.+pping affairs.