Littell's Living Age

their

cent. on a bill of £2 10s.! A millionaire | transatlantic steamships, and it is all will creep home crestfallen from the vil- the less so when that transfer is accomlage because he has failed to obtain the panied by circumstances that appear threepence discount on "Whitaker's likely to induce rivalry that may in the Almanac," which he would infallibly long run tend to the serious disadvanhave secured at any large bookseller's. tage of the one country or the other. Unluckily he wanted the book in a The United States cannot for a moment hurry, and has been obliged to pay a hope to compete with British-owned shilling for it. Next day he calls at the and British-manned ships on post-office to complain that the wrap- merits. It has been proved to the hilt pings only of a penny toy sent him that it is quite impossible for American from London in the Christmas period shipbuilders to produce tonnage as of postal over-pressure have reached cheaply as English bottoms are manuhim. He is recommended to write to factured. They require to pay almost the postmaster-general, and spends twice as much for their principal mamany happy hours in writing a series terials to begin with. Steel plates can of letters to that high official, in which, be bought for £7 per ton in England, while applying for an indemnity, such while they cost nearly as much again expressions as "disgraceful careless- on the Delaware and the Schuylkill. ness," and "more as a matter of princi- Not only so, but the cost of the labor ple" occur frequently. The same man employed in an American shipyard is will haggle over the price of the chick- very much greater than the cost of ens brought for sale to the "great labor in an English factory or workshop house" by a poor cottager's wife whom of the same character. The returns he intercepts on her way to the back collected and published by the tenth premises, and, being in possession of census of the United States showed the knowledge that they have been pay- that the average wages paid in that ing one and ninepence each for chick- country to practical shipbuilders, inens at the rectory, he beats the unlucky cluding those employed in the construcwoman down to one and eightpence, tion of timber-built vessels, was five with a piece of bread and jam for her hundred and ninety-six dollars, or £124 little girl thrown in, and goes proudly 3s. 4d. a year, and this happens to be into the house to boast to his wife of just about seventy per cent. more than his good management. the average rate of wages paid to the same class of labor on the Clyde or at Belfast. The Inman and International line cannot, therefore, buy their vessels so cheaply as the English lines to begin with. What the precise price may be that the Inman Company are to NEXT week the Stars and Stripes pay for the ships that they are now will be raised on the City of New York having constructed by Messrs. Cramp and the City of Paris instead of the on the Delaware, and by the PennsylUnion Jack, which has hitherto floated vania Company on Chesapeake Bay, from the ships of the Inman line, and has not transpired, but it must be at the business of that company will be any rate considerably above the price finally transferred from British to at which a Clyde builder would underAmerican owners. The occasion marks take to produce and equip a vessel of a new departure in the history of trans- the same sort and quality. And the atlantic navigation, which is calculated construction of an Atlantic liner is not to induce more satisfactory reflections a trifling matter by any means. The on the past than confident anticipation new ships of the Cunard Company are for the future. It is not satisfactory to estimated to cost, with their equipment, find that a rival power has become pos- considerably over half a million stersessed of one of our principal lines of ling. If the Inman and International

From The Economist. THE "STARS AND STRIPES " V. THE "UNION JACK."

stood still between 1880 and 1893 any at least fifty per cent. more for vessels more than other wages, and, indeed, of exactly the same character and effi- there is evidence to show that they ciency, they must, of course, pay con- have advanced considerably. Without, siderable more in the form of interest therefore, going quite the length of ason their investment, and although they serting that the difference between the are to have a substantial subvention for average of American and British labor the carriage of the American mails, at sea is the same now as then, we are they will find that they are still handi- entitled to expect that the relation will capped by this permanent standing not be much altered as between the charge a charge which will, more- two, and it is obviously impossible that over, be largely increased by the neces- a ship that costs nearly as much again sities involved in their contract of for labor, even if all other conditions having all new machinery and all re- were equal, can be worked as cheaply pairs executed on American soil and as its rival in the case under consideraby American labor. tion.

But the disadvantage under which There remains the question of how the company will labor in the competi- far the American seaman is more or tion that they have undertaken with less efficient than his British compeer. British lines will only begin here. There is no doubt that the higher range After a ship has been handed over to of wages generally paid in the United the owners it has to be navigated, and States conduces to higher efficiency, the history of American experiments and in many American industries the in the navigation of Atlantic liners has output is greater, relatively to the numbeen a record of costly and disastrous ber of hands employed, than in the failures. The American sailor will not same industries as carried on in Enwork for anything like the same rate of gland. But although it is possible that pay as the average English sailor, and the American marine may be fitted the Inman and International Company with somewhat more effective laborare bound to navigate their ships with saving appliances, it would be an error American labor alone. Now, the cen- to suppose that this greater effectivesus returns of 1880 showed that the average wages of sailors on steamships in the United States merchant marine of that year was £80 16s. Sd. per man. In the same year the average earnings of able seamen in the Atlantic trade at Liverpool and London was about 70s. per month, or £42 a year. The average paid to the American Scaman was, therefore, nearly twice as much as the average wages earned by British sailors in the same year. Since then the average of British seamen has risen considerably, and for some years past it has been officially returned by the Board of Trade at about 90s. per month, or £54 a year. If the wages paid to American sailors had stood still in the interval, this advance in England would, of course, have reduced the difference between the two countries very materially, but there is no reason to that seamen's wages suppose

ness, if it exists, would be sufficient to compensate for the higher rate of wages. Calculations founded upon the wages paid and the numbers of hands employed in this country, as compared with the United States, appear to show that the United States would have to pay £6,509,000 more than England for the same number of hands actually employed on the tonnage engaged in our foreign trade, and no one is likely to be bold enough to claim that even American ingenuity can overcome this enormous disadvantage in labor cost, as measured by average wages. On the whole, therefore, it is difficult to see how England can be much injured by the fact that the Americans are once again about to compete with us in the Atlantic trade. Under equal conditions, the Americans cannot compete. They may, however, propose, as did the Collins line before them, to secure

a higher range of rates and fares, and a | STATEMENT showing the TONNAGE of

BRITISH and AMERICAN VESSELS ENGAGED in the TRADE between the UNITED KINGDOM and the UNITED STATES, as represented by ENTRANCES and CLEARANCES at BRITISH PORTS, in QUINQUENNIAL YEARS, 1850 to 1891 (1=1,000 tons).

Year.

larger proportion of the first-class trade
by running at a higher rate of speed.
The American government make a
high rate of speed one condition of
the postal subsidy. But the Collins
line found that a high rate of speed
was so costly that it did not pay for
even higher rates of freights, and the
increase of speed to the extent of a 1891
knot an hour would mean all the differ- 1890
ence in cost between a first-rate return 1880
and a return that would lead straight to
bankruptcy. Besides, if the race is to
be fought out on the lines of speed, the
English companies will know how to
hold their own.

1870

1860

1850

This table is exceedingly instructive, as showing that in its own special trade the United States has been losing ground steadily since 1860, when its shipping prestige had reached its zenith. From carrying over seventy per cent. of the total trade between Great Britain and its own shores in 1860, the American marine has fallen steadily year by year, until in 1891 it only carried about two and three-quarters per cent. of the same trade. To an outside observer there is no reason why the Americans should be more successful in the passenger than in the freightcarrying business, unless there is really need for such an additional service on the Atlantic, and few are likely to maintain that such a necessity exists. The experiment will be watched with interest all the same, and especially in view of the competition of the comparatively new port of Southampton with Liverpool. The Inman Company expect that the transfer of their business to Southampton will prove to be very

The attempts made by Germany to compete with Great Britain in the running of regular lines of steamships have not been very successful. On the contrary, it was recently stated that in the five and a half years that have elapsed since the subventions to the German steamship lines were ordered by the Reichstag, the North German Lloyd line have lost over nine millions of marks (£450,000) in addition to the interest upon the twenty-five millions of marks (£1,250,000) expended in providing ships. Under the contracts made with the government, the North German Lloyd Company is bound to carry the German mails for fifteen years, and if the company were to continue to lose money during the remainder of the term at the same rate as during the first three years, the total loss incurred would exceed forty millions of marks (£2,000,000). In the face of this disastrous prospect the directors have applied for leave to abandon some of advantageous, and it is asserted that their lines that have not answered expectations, and they also wish to be relieved from the obligation imposed by the Reichstag of using German built ships only. Without predicting that this will happen to any American line constituted like the Inman and International, it need excite no surprise if that result should ultimately come to pass. The incapacity of the United States marine to hold its own in the ocean-carrying trade is shown by the following figures :

the economy of time thereby made possible, as compared with the delays at Liverpool, and the time occupied by the journey thence in reaching London, will be equal to a knot per hour in the voyage to New York. But whatever may be the present gain to the Inman company from this point of view, the Liverpool lines are alive to the necessities of the case, and will soon reduce the importance of any difference against themselves, should such difference exist.